Abstract Landslides, particularly debris flows, have long been a significant cause of damage and destruction to people and property in the Puget Sound region. Following the years of 1996 and 1997, the Federal Emergency Management Agency designated Seattle as a “Project Impact” city with the goal of encouraging the city to become more disaster resistant to landslides and other natural hazards. A major recommendation of the Project Impact council was that the city and the U.S. Geological Survey collaborate to produce a landslide hazard map. An exceptional data set archived by the city containing more than 100 yr of landslide data from severe storm events allowed comparison of actual landslide locations with those predicted by slope-stability modeling. We used an infinite-slope analysis, which models slope segments as rigid friction blocks, to estimate the susceptibility of slopes to debris flows, which are water-laden slurries that can form from shallow failures of soil and weathered bedrock and can travel at high velocities down steep slopes. Data used for the analysis consisted of a digital slope map derived from recent light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imagery of Seattle, recent digital geologic mapping of the city, and shear-strength test data for the geologic units found in the surrounding area. The combination of these data layers within a geographic information system (GIS) platform allowed us to create a shallow landslide hazard map for Seattle.

During a one-month period in early 2001, El Salvador experienced two devastating earthquakes. On 13 January, a M-7.7 earthquake centered ∼40 km off the southern coast in the Pacific Ocean caused widespread damage and fatalities throughout much of the country. The earthquake triggered thousands of landslides that were broadly scattered across the southern half of the country. The most damaging landslide, a rapidly moving mass of ∼130,000 m 3 , occurred in the Las Colinas neighborhood of Santa Tecla, where ∼585 people were killed. Another large landslide (∼750,000 m 3 ) near the city of San Vicente blocked the Pan-American Highway for several weeks. One month later, on 13 February, a M-6.6 earthquake occurred ∼40 km east-southeast of San Salvador and triggered additional thousands of landslides in the area east of Lake Ilopango. The landslides were concentrated in a 2500 km 2 area and were particularly abundant in areas underlain by thick deposits of poorly consolidated, late Pleistocene and Holocene Tierra Blanca rhyolitic tephras erupted from Ilopango caldera. Most of the triggered landslides were relatively small, shallow failures, but two large landslides occurred that blocked the El Desagüe River and the Jiboa River. The two earthquakes triggered similar types of landslides, but the distribution of triggered landslides differed because of different earthquake source parameters. The large-magnitude, deep, offshore earthquake triggered broadly scattered landslides over a large region, whereas the shallow, moderate-magnitude earthquake centered within the country triggered a much smaller, denser concentration of landslides. These results are significant in the context of seismic-hazard mitigation for various earthquake scenarios.

Abstract The Villa Del Monte landslide was one of 20 large and complex landslides triggered by the 1989 Loma Prieta, California, earthquake in a zone of pervasive coseismic ground cracking near the fault rupture. The landslide was ~980 m long, 870 m wide, and encompassed an area of ~68 ha. Drilling data suggested that movement may have extended to depths as great as 85 m below the ground surface. Even though the landslide moved <1 m, it caused substantial damage to numerous dwellings and other structures, primarily as a result of differential displacements and internal Assuring. Surface cracks, scarps, and compression features delineating the Villa Del Monte landslide were discontinuous, probably because coseismic displacements were small; such discontinuous features were also characteristic of the other large, coseismic landslides in the area, which also moved only short distances during the earthquake. Because features marking landslide boundaries were discontinuous and because other types of coseismic ground cracks were widespread in the area, identification of the landslides required detailed mapping and analysis. Recognition that landslides such as that at Villa Del Monte may occur near earthquake-generating fault ruptures should aid in future hazard evaluations of areas along active faults.

Abstract Following the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California, earthquake (M = 6.7), Ventura County, California, experienced a major outbreak of coccidioidomycosis (valley fever), a respiratory disease contracted by inhaling airborne fungal spores. In the eight weeks following the earthquake (January 24 through March 15), 203 outbreak-associated cases were reported, which is about an order of magnitude more than the expected number of cases, and 3 of these cases were fatal. Simi Valley, in easternmost Ventura County, had the highest attack rate in the county, and the attack rate decreased westward across the county. The temporal and spatial distribution of coccidioidomycosis cases indicates that the outbreak resulted from inhalation of spore-contaminated dust generated by earthquake-triggered landslides. Canyons northeast of Simi Valley produced many highly disrupted, dust-generating landslides during the earthquake and its aftershocks. Prevailing winds after the earthquake were from the northeast, which transported dust into Simi Valley and beyond to communities to the west. The 3 fatalities from the coccidioidomycosis epidemic accounted for 4% of the total earthquake-related fatalities.