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Down to Earth with Ross Stein, Geotimes, July 2007.
Talking with USGS geophysicist Ross Stein,
in People, Land & Water, 2006.
An interview with Ross Stein published at ISI
Special Topics, December 2003. |
Ross Stein
My research focuses upon how earthquakes interact through
the transfer of stress. Examples of such interaction include
the progression of mainshocks along a fault, aftershocks,
seismic quiesence, and earthquake clustering. My collaborators
and I are interested in how one earthquake can promote subsequent
shocks at some sites and inhibit them in others.
This work is driven by an attempt to deepen our understanding
of the physics of earthquakes, and a desire to develop a
new way to make probabilistic hazard assessments. Our tools
are seismology, geophysics, elasticity theory, structural
geology, and geomorphology.
In addition, I study the deformation of the earth's surface
associated with earthquakes, fault creep, and volcanic processes.
This work seeks to infer rupture and fault geometry, and
to understand the relationship between earthquake deformation
and geologic structures. Our tools are classical and space
geodesy. Key interests are blind thrust faults, high-angle
normal faults, and magmatic inflation and collapse.
My work is currently funded by a Cooperative R&D Agreement
with Swiss Re, the world's second largest insurance
company; and through a series of research grants from NASA.
My first R&D project with Swiss Re
was a study of the earthquake threat to Istanbul in the wake
of the 1999 Izmit shock; the current Swiss Re project assesses
the earthquake hazard for Tokyo, and with participation
by several leading Japanese scientists. A 1996-2001 R&D
project earthquake hazards in the San Francisco Bay area
was carried out with PG&E. Other recent studies
were funded by U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
and FEMA.
Over the past several years, I have participated in documentary
films, including 'Killer Quake' (NOVA, 1995), 'Great
Quakes: Turkey' (Discovery Channel, 2001), 'Earthquake
Storms' (BBC, 2003), and an IMAX film, 'Forces
of Nature' (National Geographic), which wass released
in summer 2004. Click
here to see an article about 'Forces
of Nature' in the Mercury News.
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U.S.
Geological Survey, Earthquake Hazards Program
