Ground Failure

Special Interest Group

Ground Failure

Shallow subsurface properties in the Pacific Northwest not only influence the characteristics of ground shaking from large earthquakes (SIG2) but also control coseismic cascading hazards, e.g., landslides, liquefaction, lateral spreading and ground failure. Quantifying these subsurface properties is critical owing to the extensive alluvial deposits, unstable mountainous terrain, and significant precipitation in the region. The purpose of the Ground Failure SIG is to appropriately steer this shallow hazard focus and help translate related working group outputs into societal relevant products, while working directly with federal (e.g., USGS) and state agencies (e.g., CGS, DOGAMI, and WA DNR) for whom ground failure estimates are a priority. 

Oblique image of the Whatcom County Landlside from Washington Geological Survey (Washington State DNR).

Community Product

Ground Failure Viewer

The CRESCENT Ground Failure Viewer is a regional platform that integrates, curates, and distributes peer-reviewed ground failure data to support planning, response, and mitigation across Cascadia. The viewer integrates openly available landslide and ground failure datasets from Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. The viewer is designed to enable Cascadia region filtering and data export and provides a submission pathway for researchers and agencies to contribute peer-reviewed datasets to further our understanding of Ground Failure Hazards in Cascadia.

An accompanying Jupyter-book details the processing and unification steps for the available datasets and provides instructions for how to submit new peer-reviewed data for inclusion in the viewer.

The viewer is an open-source tool. The code is available on the CRESCENT GitHub. Please reference using https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18895836.

Meet The Team

Ground Failure SIG Membership

Ben Leshchinsky, Oregon State University

Ben Leshchinsky
Ground Failure SIG Lead
Oregon State University
Ben.Leshchinsky@oregonstate.edu

Michael Olsen, Oregon State University

Michael Olsen
Oregon State University
michael.olsen@oregonstate.edu

Pieter-Ewald Share, Oregon State University

Pieter-Ewald Share
Oregon State University
pieter.share@oregonstate.edu

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