ALEUT project:
Alaska Langseth Experiment to Understand the megaThrust
Our project focuses on the subduction zone off southern Alaska, which produces large and destructive earthquakes. The Good Friday earthquake in 1964 was the second largest earthquake ever recorded (magnitude 9.2). The primary purpose of our study is to use marine seismic reflection and refraction data to: (1) estimate the size of the seismogenic zone, the portion of the fault that controls the magnitude of earthquakes, off southern Alaska, and (2) determine how the properties of the seismogenic zone change downdip and along the subduction zone, such that some areas produce large earthquakes and others do not. In particular, we are concentrating on the Semidi segment, which last ruptured in a great earthquake (magnitude 8.3) 72 years ago in 1938. This area has a recurrence interval of ~50-75 years, and thus might be due to produce another big earthquake soon. We acquired a suite of geophysical data using the R/V Marcus G. Langseth in July-August 2011, including deep-penetration multi-channel seismic reflection data, wide-angle reflection-refraction data , high-resolution data (swath bathymetry, 3.5 kHz, etc) and oceanographic data.
Donna J. Shillington, Spahr Webb, Anne Bécel, Jiyao Li, Andrew Wessbecher, John Diebold
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Mladen Nedimović, Berta Biescas Gorriz, Harold Kuehn
Dalhousie University
Map showing data acquired during the summer of 2011 as a part of the ALEUT program.
Download the cruise report
Download the cruise report plus appendices (warning: this is 205 Mb!!)