
Ramon ArrowsmithArizona State University | ASU · School of Earth and Space Exploration
Ramon Arrowsmith
PhD in Geological Sciences
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371
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Introduction
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August 1995 - present
Publications
Publications (371)
Mapping tectonic faults is challenging because mapping approaches are not standardized and some evidence for faulting is ambiguous due to surface processes that obscure the geomorphology. We developed and evaluated a new systematized approach for mapping faults and documenting geomorphic evidence based on desktop mapping using remote sensing data....
This study investigates the intricate relationship between earthquake sources and seismogenic surface ruptures in a complex tectonic setting with active faults in the continental collision zone between the southern Tien Shan and the northern Pamir Mountains in Central Asia. The study focuses on the 2008 Mw 6.6 Nura earthquake along the Pamir Fronta...
Tectonic landforms and surficial lithologic age are essential data for producing quality late Quaternary fault maps and predicting coseismic fault rupture location before an earthquake. However, we lack a clear understanding of the relationship between tectonic landforms and shallow earthquake processes and how lithologic age relates to landform pr...
Understanding the dynamics of precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) is important for seismic hazard analysis and rockfall prediction. Utilizing a physics engine and robotic tools, we develop a virtual shake robot (VSR) to simulate the dynamics of PBRs during overturning and large-displacement processes. We present the background of physics engines and...
As continents break apart, the dominant mechanism of extension transitions from faulting and lithospheric stretching to magma intrusion and oceanic crust formation in a new ocean basin. A common feature of this evolution preserved at magmatic rifted margins worldwide are voluminous lava flows that erupted close to sea level during the final stages of...
Earthquake surface-fault rupture location uncertainty is a key factor in fault displacement hazard analysis and informs hazard and risk mitigation strategies. Geologists often predict future rupture locations from fault mapping based on the geomorphology interpreted from remote-sensing data sets. However, surface processes can obscure fault locatio...
We apply a deep learning model to segment and identify rock characteristics based on a Structure‐from‐Motion orthomap and digital elevation model of a rocky fault scarp in the Volcanic Tablelands, eastern California, in the United States. By post‐processing the deep learning results, we build a semantic rock map and analyze rock trait distributions...
Our earlier research built a virtual shake robot in simulation to study the dynamics of precariously balanced rocks (PBR), which are negative indicators of earthquakes in nature. The simulation studies need validation through physical experiments. For this purpose, we developed Shakebot, a low-cost (under $2,000), open-source shake table to validat...
We apply a deep learning model to segment and identify rock characteristics based on a Structure-from-Motion orthomap and digital elevation model of a rocky fault scarp in the Volcanic Tablelands, eastern California. By post-processing the deep learning results, we build a semantic rock map and analyze rock trait distributions. The resulting semant...
In the Supplementary Materials, we provide:
a figure showing the methodological workflow of this paper (Figure S1);
the distribution of the data selected from Bello et al. 2021b of the areas 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9, on the hillshade produced with the SfM (Figures S2 - S4);
a figure representing a 3D model that shows the complex surface rupture patte...
Following observations made in a survey campaign along the Lost River Fault (Idaho, USA) in 2019, we integrate both original and previously published data to obtain a detailed segmentation of the fault sections that failed in the 1983 Borah Peak earthquake (Mw 6.9). The earthquake ruptured the topographic surface with an oblique-normal faulting mec...
Observations of fault geometry and cumulative slip distribution serve as critical constraints on fault behavior over temporal scales ranging from a single earthquake to a fault’s complete history. The increasing availability of high-resolution topography (at least one observation per square meter) from air- and spaceborne platforms facilitates meas...
Differencing multi-temporal topographic data (radar, lidar, or photogrammetrically derived point clouds or digital elevation models—DEMs) measures landscape change, with broad applications for scientific research, hazard management, industry, and urban planning. The United States Geological Survey’s 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) is an ambitious effor...
Detrital zircons from two major rift basins within the East African Rift System (EARS) provide a means to evaluate not only sediment provenance and landscape dynamics in sedimentary basins, but also the timing of the silicic volcano-tectonic evolution of the rift system. We sampled from drill cores collected by the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Dril...
Paleoanthropologists have long speculated about the role of environmental change in shaping human evolution in Africa. In recent years, drill cores of late Neogene lacustrine sedimentary rocks have yielded valuable high-resolution records of climatic and ecosystem change. Eastern African Rift sediments (primarily lake beds) provide an extraordinary...
Lahars are rapid flows composed of water and volcaniclastic sediments, which have the potential to impact residential buildings and critical infrastructure as well as to disrupt critical services, especially in the absence of hazard-based land-use planning. Their destructive power is mostly associated with their velocity (related to internal flow p...
Active compressional tectonics along the outer front of the Apenninic-Maghrebian chain (Italy) is well documented along the northern and central segments and in Sicily. On the other hand, the Southern Apenninic Outer Front (SAOF) orogenic activity is well established only until the Lower-Middle Pleistocene. We address the hypothesis of its subseque...
The Wheeler Ridge anticline, located in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California, USA, is a well-studied and classic example of a laterally growing fault propagation fold. New high-resolution lidar elevation data combined with nine infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) ages of discrete geomorphic surfaces that are bounded by prominent transv...
The Apenninic chain, in central Italy, has been recently struck by the Norcia 2016 seismic sequence. Three mainshocks, in 2016, occurred on August 24 (MW6.0), October 26 (MW 5.9) and October 30 (MW6.5) along well-known late Quaternary active WSW-dipping normal faults. Coseismic fractures and hypocentral seismicity distribution are mostly associated...
Topographic differencing measures landscape change by comparing multitemporal high-resolution topography data sets. Here, we focused on two types of topographic differencing: (1) Vertical differencing is the subtraction of digital elevation models (DEMs) that span an event of interest. (2) Three-dimensional (3-D) differencing measures surface chang...
Modern Homo sapiens engage in substantial ecosystem modification, but it is difficult to detect the origins or early consequences of these behaviors. Archaeological, geochronological, geomorphological, and paleoenviron-mental data from northern Malawi document a changing relationship between forager presence, ecosystem organization, and alluvial fa...
Robotic mapping is useful in scientific applications that involve surveying unstructured environments. This paper presents a target-oriented mapping system for sparsely distributed geologic surface features, such as precariously balanced rocks (PBRs), whose geometric fragility parameters can provide valuable information on earthquake shaking histor...
Coral reef mapping is an indispensable step in coral conservation efforts across the globe. Monitoring reefs at regular intervals helps conservationists understand and address the problems causing coral reef degradation. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have a tremendous potential to assist humans in these efforts. Delegating mapping and measu...
We present high-resolution mapping and surface faulting measurements along the Lost River fault (Idaho-USA), a normal fault activated in the 1983 (Mw 6.9) earthquake. The earthquake ruptured ~35 km of the fault with a maximum throw of ~3 m. From new 5 to 30 cm-pixel resolution topography collected by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, we produce the most...
New fault trace mapping and structural survey of the active faults outcropping within the epicentral area of the Campania-Lucania 1980 normal fault earthquake (Mw 6.9) are integrated with a revision of pre-existing earthquake data and with an updated interpretation of the CROP-04 near-vertical seismic profile to reconstruct the surface and depth ge...
Fault creep reduces seismic hazard and serves as a window into plate boundary processes; however, creep rates are typically constrained with sparse measurements. We use differential lidar topography (11–13 year time span) to measure a spatially dense surface deformation field along a 150 km section of the Central San Andreas and Calaveras faults. W...
We provide an overview of a 2019 workshop on the use of fragile geologic features (FGFs) to evaluate seismic hazard models. FGFs have been scarcely utilized in the evaluation of seismic hazard models, despite nearly 30 yr having passed since the first recognition of their potential value. Recently, several studies have begun to focus on the impleme...
We present results from complementary geological, topographic, seismic and electrical resistivity surveys at the Sagebrush Flat (SGB) site along the Clark fault (CF) strand of the San Jacinto fault zone trifurcation area southeast of Anza, California. Joint interpretation of these data sets, each with unique spatiotemporal sensitivities, allow us t...
Uplift in the broken Andean foreland of the Argentine Santa Bárbara System (SBS) is associated with the contractional reactivation of basement anisotropies, similar to those reported from the thick-skinned Cretaceous-Eocene Laramide province of North America. Fault scarps, deformed Quaternary deposits and landforms, disrupted drainage patterns, and...
Robotic mapping is attractive in many science applications that involve environmental surveys. This paper presents a system for localization and mapping of sparsely distributed surface features such as precariously balanced rocks (PBRs), whose geometric fragility (stability) parameters provide valuable information on earthquake processes. With geom...
Stress fields in the Earth's crust are important indicators leading to better understanding of geologic processes. One way to acquire stress data is through morphometric analysis of volcanoes. Here we evaluate 141 Quaternary-age monogenetic and polygenetic volcanoes and volcanic fields in Java, Indonesia, using a 30-m SRTM DEM, a 8-m DEMNAS, aerial...
The Pamir Frontal Thrust (PFT) constitutes the northernmost boundary of the Pamir mountain range at the NW edge of the India-Eurasia collision zone. Due to the ongoing collision this active system propagates into and overthrusts the Quaternary deposits of the Alai Valley, an intermontane basin separating the Pamir from the Tien Shan in the north. G...
Surface rupture from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, initially associated with the Mw 6.4 foreshock, occurred on 4 July on a ∼17 km long, northeast–southwest-oriented, left-lateral zone of faulting. Following the Mw 7.1 mainshock on 5 July (local time), extensive northwest–southeast-oriented, right-lateral faulting was then also mapped alo...
High-resolution topography (HRT) is a powerful observational tool for studying the Earth's surface, vegetation, and urban landscapes, with broad scientific, engineering, and education-based applications. Submeter resolution imaging is possible when collected with laser and photogrammetric techniques using the ground, air, and space-based platforms....
The Neogene and Quaternary are characterized by enormous changes in global climate and environments, including global cooling and the establishment of northern high-latitude glaciers. These changes reshaped global ecosystems, including the emergence of tropical dry forests and savannahs that are found in Africa today, which in turn may have influen...
The ~ 900 km long Apennine fold-and-thrust belt dominates mainland-Italy and Sicily, where it
connects with the Maghrebian chain. The belt reached its present setting following a progressive
foreland-ward propagation, started about 10 Ma and continued through the Quaternary. The
Apennine Outer Front is still active along its northern and central se...
Earthquakes are a major natural hazard for the Mediterranean area. Italy is one of the countries where they are among the deadliest disasters. Earthquakes occurred in the last fifteen years in central-southern Italy (S. Giuliano di Puglia 2002 Mw 5.4, l’Aquila 2009 Mw 6.3, Norcia 2016 Mw 6.5) confirm the significant vulnerability of buildings, even...
Plain Language Summary
Coseismic slip inversions quantify fault slip over a fault surface and serve as critical input into research on rupture propagation, earthquake triggering, and seismic hazard. However, coseismic slip distributions are rarely constrained by observations of surface displacement immediately adjacent to the fault rupture. This li...
Significance
Humans are distinguished from all other primates by their reliance on tool use. When this uniquely human feature began is debated. Evidence of tool use in human ancestors now extends almost 3.3 Ma and becomes prevalent only after 2.6 Ma with the Oldowan. Here, we report a new Oldowan locality (BD 1) that dates prior to 2.6 Ma. These ea...
Beginning with the nineteenth-century territorial surveys, the lakes and lacustrine deposits in what is now the western United States were recognized for their economic value to the expanding nation. In the latter half of the twentieth century, these systems have been acknowledged as outstanding examples of depositional systems serving as models fo...
Instrumental and historical records of earthquakes supplemented by paleoeseismic records reveal the earthquake potential of an area. The back‐arc region of the Javan subduction system has been considered to be inactive seismically and is identified as a region of low seismic hazard on the seismic hazard map of Indonesia. However, our study document...
Reproducibility of results from scientific studies is rarely demonstrated outside the laboratory. Measurements of fault slip rate underpin scientific models of active faulting and seismic hazard assessments widely used for policymaking and risk mitigation. We replicated a highly referenced study that measured the slip rate as 33.9 ± 2.9 mm/year alo...
We investigate the 4 April 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor‐Cucapah (Mexico) earthquake using three‐dimensional surface deformation computed from preevent and postevent airborne lidar topography. By profiling the E‐W, N‐S, and vertical displacement fields at densely sampled (∼300 m) intervals along the multisegment rupture and computing fault offsets in each c...
Historically, aseismic fault creep has been measured primarily at <40 m apertures with creep meters, at km’s distances with GPS methods, and with inSAR. In this project, we difference high resolution point clouds recently generated using structure from motion photogrammetry (SfM) against older LiDAR data, to ascertain the three dimensional deformat...
The distribution of tectonic activity in the Himalaya has been debated for decades and several aspects remain unknown. For instance, the amount of crustal shortening that ultimately sustains Himalayan topography and the activity of major fault zones remains unquantified at geological-timescales. In our studies, we study landscape morphology and com...
The Pamir–Tien Shan convergence zone represents a major tectonic part of the Indian-Eurasian collision zone by accommodating nearly one-third of the total 44 mm/yr total shortening in the greater Pamir region. These high deformation rates across relatively short distances compared to other intracontinental orogenic settings drive strain release wit...
Three-dimensional near-fault coseismic deformation fields from high-resolution differential topography provide new information on the behavior of the shallow fault zone in large surface-rupturing earthquakes. Our work focuses on the 16 April 2016 Mw 7.0 Kumamoto, Japan, earthquake, which ruptured ~40 km of the Futagawa-Hinagu Fault Zone on Kyushu I...
The western margin of the Tibetan Plateau is defined by the NE-striking, sinistral Longmu Co fault system and the NW-striking, dextral Karakoram fault system. The region of convergence of these two systems is remote and politically sensitive, precluding systematic geologic mapping in the field. As a consequence, there is considerable controversy re...
Geoscience is an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, and one of the most interdisciplinary geosciences is tectonics. Embracing experimental, observational, and theoretical perspectives, tectonics focuses on the interactions among various components of Earth and planetary systems as they evolve over many spatial and temporal dimensions. Many of t...
As a result of the ongoing Indian-Eurasian collision the Pamir mountain range accommodates nearly one-third of the 44 mm/yr total convergence. With high deformation rates over relatively short distances compared to other intracontinental orogenic settings, this seismically active area is capable of producing large-magnitude earthquakes of up to M7...