Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunities

There are several opporunities available that are likely to be of interest to the alumni of our program. Please find four of these highlighted below. The first three are based in Golden, the fourth is based in Menolo Park, and the fifth is based at the Seattle field office.

(1) Integrating Earthquake Ground Failure into Real-time Hazard and Loss Assessment. The focus of this opportunity is on research that will ultimately provide a more complete characterization of two earthquake-related hazards—landslides and liquefaction—in the immediate hours following a significant domestic or global earthquake. (Lead researcher David Wald, wald@usgs.gov).

(2) Improving Earthquake Location Procedures Using Calibration Events and Signal Processing: Significantly Advancing our Understanding of Earthquake Sequences and Seismotectonics. The focus this opportunity is science that will ultimately provide a more accurate and consistent approach to earthquake location both for real-time operations at the USGS/NEIC, and for more research-based analyses of earthquake sequences and seismotectonic characterization. (Lead researcher Harley Benz, benz@usgs.gov).

(3) The Integration of Geodetic Datasets into Rapid and Long Term Observations of Earthquake Properties. The focus this opportunity is science that will ultimately provide a more rapid and complete characterization of earthquake properties (i.e., location, magnitude, source characteristics) in the minutes to hours following major domestic and global events, and will concurrently improve our longer term understanding of earthquake cycles and domestic and global fault systems. (Lead researcher Gavin Hayes, ghayes@usgs.gov).

(4) 4-D imaging of the active magmatic system underlying Mammoth Mountain, CA. We seek a Mendenhall Fellow to carry out seismic imaging of the Mammoth Mountain system, to help understand the magmatic and hydrothermal systems underlying the area.  For details please see the full announcement here: http://geology.usgs.gov/postdoc/opps/2015/15-5%20Hill.htm (Lead researcher David Hill, hill@usgs.gov).

(5) The high-rate revolution: Studying tectonic deformation at previously inaccessible temporal and spatial scale. We seek a postdoctoral Fellow to study fault slip processes using new types of instrumentation and methods of analysis that measure ground deformation on time scales rarely sampled previously, from fractions of a second to hours.  In particular, strainmeters, GPS receivers, tiltmeters, and pressure sensors record with sampling rates as high as 20 Hz or more and have increased the dynamic range of measureable deformation by orders of magnitude, so that we can address key questions about how earthquakes and aseismic slip scale over the full spectrum of source sizes. Specific project topics may relate to earthquake source process studies, transient aseismic slip, as well as studies to better understanding of the measurements themselves.  (Lead researcher Joan Gomberg, gomberg@usgs.gov).

Application deadline: February 17, 2015.

Please contact one or more of the research advisors directly to discuss application proposals.

For general information on the Mendenhall program please see:

http://geology.usgs.gov/postdoc/opps/research.html