The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America

Subsurface geologic features of the 2011 central Virginia earthquakes revealed by airborne geophysics
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Published:January 01, 2015
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CiteCitation
Anjana K. Shah, J. Wright Horton, Jr., William C. Burton, David B. Spears, Amy K. Gilmer, 2015. "Subsurface geologic features of the 2011 central Virginia earthquakes revealed by airborne geophysics", The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America, J. Wright Horton, Jr., Martin C. Chapman, Russell A. Green
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Characterizing geologic features associated with major earthquakes provides insights into mechanisms contributing to fault slip and assists evaluation of seismic hazard. We use high-resolution airborne geophysical data combined with ground sample measurements to image subsurface geologic features associated with the 2011 moment magnitude (Mw) 5.8 central Virginia (USA) intraplate earthquake and its aftershocks. Geologic mapping and magnetic data analyses suggest that the earthquake occurred near a complex juncture of geologic contacts. These contacts also intersect a >60-km-long linear gravity gradient. Distal aftershocks occurred in tight, ~1-km-wide clusters near other obliquely oriented contacts that intersect gravity gradients, in contrast...
- aftershocks
- airborne methods
- damage
- District of Columbia
- earthquake prediction
- earthquakes
- epicenters
- geophysical methods
- geophysical surveys
- instruments
- lineaments
- Louisa County Virginia
- magnetic anomalies
- magnetic methods
- magnitude
- propagation
- seismic energy
- seismic zoning
- seismicity
- slip rates
- spatial distribution
- surveys
- technology
- tectonics
- United States
- Virginia
- Mineral earthquake 2011