Following the 16 October 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine earthquake, no earthquake larger than magnitude 6.0 occurred in southern California for nearly 20 yr. That lull came to an end with the occurrence of the 4 July 2019 Mw 6.4 earthquake at 22:40 UTC (10:33 a.m. local time). Located in a relatively sparsely populated part of the state, with most of its rupture within the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station

Surface rupture in the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence occurred along two orthogonal cross faults and includes dominantly left‐lateral and northeast‐striking rupture in the Mw 6.4 foreshock and dominantly right‐lateral and northwest‐striking rupture in the Mw 7.1 mainshock. We present >650 field‐based, surface‐displacement observations for these ruptures and synthesize our results

Mapping fault surface rupture in the aftermath of earthquakes quickly and efficiently is critical to both emergency responders and scientific investigations. We applied an optical imagery correlation technique to map, in detail, the location (not magnitude of displacement) of the surface‐rupture trace of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence to help provide field responders with information to guide

The July 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes in southeastern California were characterized as surprising by some, because only ∼35% of the rupture occurred on previously mapped faults. Employing more detailed inspection of pre‐event high‐resolution topography and imagery in combination with field observations, we document evidence of active faulting in the landscape along the entire fault system. Scarps, deflected

Decadal scale variations in the seismicity rate in the Ridgecrest‐Coso region, part of the Eastern California Shear Zone, included seismic quiescence from the 1930s to the early 1980s, followed by increased seismicity until the 2019 Mw 6.4 and 7.1 Ridgecrest sequence. This sequence exhibited complex rupture on almost orthogonal faults and triggered aftershocks over an area of ∼90 km long by ∼5–10 km

We present a database and analyze ground motions recorded during three events that occurred as part of the July 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence: a moment magnitude (M) 6.5 foreshock on a left‐lateral cross fault in the Salt Wells Valley fault zone, an M 5.5 foreshock in the Paxton Ranch fault zone, and the M 7.1 mainshock, also occurring in the Paxton Ranch fault zone. We collected and uniformly

The Ridgecrest seismic sequence began on 4 July 2019 in California, on a hitherto relatively unmapped orthogonal cross‐faulting system, causing mainly nonstructural or liquefaction‐related damage to buildings in the vicinity of Ridgecrest and Trona, and also causing substantial surface rupture. The present study considers the near‐source ground‐acceleration recordings collected during the two principal

Shaking from the 6 July 2019 Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, mainshock was strongly felt through southern California, but generated relatively minimal structural damage in Ridgecrest. We consider the extent to which a damage proxy map (DPM) generated from satellite‐based Synthetic Aperture Radar images can detect minor damage throughout the town of Ridgecrest. The DPM does not, as expected, detect all

We evaluated the performance of 12 ground‐motion models (GMMs) for earthquakes in the tectonically active shallow crustal region of southern California using instrumental ground‐motion observations from the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence (⁠Mw 4.0–7.1). The sequence was well recorded by the Southern California Seismic Network and rapid response portable aftershock monitoring stations

We use a large instrumental dataset from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence (Rekoske et al., 2019, 2020) to examine repeatable source‐, path‐, and site‐specific ground motions. A mixed‐effects analysis is used to partition total residuals relative to the Boore et al. (2014; hereafter, BSSA14) ground‐motion model. We calculate the Arias intensity stress drop for the earthquakes and find strong

The 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence produced a 4 July M 6.5 foreshock and a 5 July M 7.1 mainshock, along with 23 events with magnitudes greater than 4.5 in the 24 hr period following the mainshock. The epicenters of the two principal events were located in the Indian Wells Valley, northwest of Searles Valley near the towns of Ridgecrest, Trona, and Argus. We describe observed liquefaction manifestations

The July 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence included the largest earthquake (M 7.1) to strike the conterminous United States in the past 20 yr. To characterize the types, numbers, and areal distributions of different types of ground failure (landslides, liquefaction, and ground cracking), I conducted a field investigation of ground failure triggered by the sequence around the periphery

Strong seismic waves from the July 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquakes displaced rocks in proximity to the M 7.1 mainshock fault trace at several locations. In this report, we document large boulders that were displaced at the Wagon Wheel Staging Area (WWSA), approximately 4.5 km southeast of the southern terminus of the large M 6.4 foreshock rupture (hereafter “the large foreshock”) and 9 km

Human behavioral response to earthquake ground motion has long been a subject of multidisciplinary interest and research. In most versions of seismic intensity scales, human perceptions and behavior are one component of the assignment of intensity. Public health research has shown that actions taken during earthquakes have a significant impact on the incidence of injury or the maintenance of safety

The 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence culminated in the largest seismic event in California since the 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine earthquake. Here, we combine geodetic and seismic data to study the rupture process of both the 4 July Mw 6.4 foreshock and the 6 July Mw 7.1 mainshock. The results show that the Mw 6.4 foreshock rupture started on a northwest‐striking right‐lateral fault, and then continued

The Ridgecrest earthquake pair ruptured a previously unknown orthogonal fault system in the eastern California shear zone. The stronger of the two, an Mw 7.1 earthquake that occurred on 6 July 2019, was preceded by an Mw 6.4 foreshock that occurred 34 hr earlier. In this study, distinct final slip distributions for the two earthquakes are obtained via joint inversion of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture

We model the kinematic rupture process of the 2019 Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake using numerical simulations to reproduce the elastodynamic wave field observed by inertial seismometers, high‐rate Global Navigation Satellite System stations, and borehole strainmeters. This was the largest earthquake in Southern California in 20 yr and was widely felt throughout the region. The Mw 7.1 mainshock

The July 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence involved two large events—the M 6.4 foreshock and the M 7.1 mainshock that ruptured a system of intersecting strike‐slip faults. We present analysis of space geodetic observations including Synthetic Aperture Radar and Global Navigation Satellite System data, geological field mapping, and seismicity to constrain the subsurface rupture geometry

We have developed a global earthquake monitoring system based on low‐latency measurements from more than 1000 existing Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, of which nine captured the 2019 Mw 6.4 Ridgecrest, California, foreshock and Mw 7.1 mainshock earthquakes. For the foreshock, coseismic offsets of up to 10 cm are resolvable on one station closest to the fault, but did not trigger

The 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence produced observable crustal deformation over much of central and southern California, as well as surface rupture over several tens of kilometers. To obtain a detailed picture of the fault slip involved in the 4 July M 6.4 foreshock and 6 July M 7.1 mainshock, we combine strong‐motion seismic waveforms with crustal deformation observations to obtain

We investigate the deformation processes during the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence by combining Global Navigation Satellite Systems, strong‐motion, and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar datasets in a joint inversion. The spatial complementarity of slip between the Mw 6.4 foreshock, Mw 7.1 mainshock, and afterslip suggests the importance of static stress transfer as a triggering mechanism

The July 2019 Mw 6.4 and 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquakes triggered numerous aftershocks, including clusters of off‐fault aftershocks in an extensional stepover of the Garlock fault, near the town of Olancha, and near Panamint Valley. The locations of the off‐fault aftershocks are consistent with the stress‐similarity model of triggering, which hypothesizes that aftershocks preferentially occur in areas

Many geothermal and volcanic regions experience remote and regional triggering following large earthquakes. The transient or permanent changes in stresses acting on faults and fractures can lead to changes in seismicity rates following either the passage of teleseismic waves or the permanent change in stresses following regional events. One such region of prevalent triggering is the Coso Geothermal

Operational earthquake forecasting protocols commonly use statistical models for their recognized ease of implementation and robustness in describing the short‐term spatiotemporal patterns of triggered seismicity. However, recent advances on physics‐based aftershock forecasting reveal comparable performance to the standard statistical counterparts with significantly improved predictive skills when

The recent 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence in southern California jostled the seismological community by revealing a complex and cascading foreshock series that culminated in a Mw 7.1 mainshock. But the central Garlock fault, despite being located immediately south of this sequence, did not coseismically fail. Instead, the Garlock fault underwent postseismic creep and exhibited a sizeable earthquake

We first explore a series of retrospective earthquake interactions in southern California. We find that the four Mw≥7 shocks in the past 150 yr brought the Ridgecrest fault ∼1 bar closer to failure. Examining the 34 hr time span between the Mw 6.4 and Mw 7.1 events, we calculate that the Mw 6.4 event brought the hypocentral region of the Mw 7.1 earthquake 0.7 bars closer to failure, with the Mw 7.1

This study considers the possible implementation of the operational short‐term forecasting, and analysis of earthquake occurrences using a real‐time hypocenter catalog of ongoing seismic activity, by reviewing case studies of the aftershocks of the Mw 6.4 Searles Valley earthquake that occurred before the Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake. First, the short‐term prediction of spatiotemporal activity is required

The 2019 Ridgecrest sequence provides the first opportunity to evaluate Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast v.3 with epidemic‐type aftershock sequences (UCERF3‐ETAS) in a pseudoprospective sense. For comparison, we include a version of the model without explicit faults more closely mimicking traditional ETAS models (UCERF3‐NoFaults). We evaluate the forecasts with new metrics developed within

We present new 3D source fault representations for the 2019 M 6.4 and M 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence. These representations are based on relocated hypocenter catalogs expanded by template matching and focal mechanisms for M 4 and larger events. Following the approach of Riesner et al. (2017), we generate reproducible 3D fault geometries by integrating hypocenter, nodal plane, and surface rupture

The template‐matching algorithm (TMA) has become an important tool for detecting small and/or unconventional earthquakes, and newly detected seismic events have improved our understanding of earthquake physics, regional tectonics, and geological hazards. Standard TMA‐based detection methods do not take into account the fact that the template waveforms themselves are contaminated with noise. In this

The 2019 Ridgecrest, California, sequence includes an Mw 6.4 earthquake on 4 July and an Mw 7.1 mainshock 34 hr later. We perform absolute location of Mw≥1.0 Ridgecrest events using multiple velocity models, station corrections, and a location algorithm robust to velocity model and arrival‐time error. The obtained seismicity is mainly ∼3–12 km deep, with few shallower events. The Mw 6.4 hypocenter

Stress drop, while difficult to measure reliably and at scale, is a key source parameter for understanding the earthquake rupture process and its relationship to strong ground motion. Here, we use a P‐wave spectral decomposition approach, designed for large and densely sampled datasets, to measure earthquake stress drop in the region surrounding the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence

The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system aims to alert people who experience modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) IV+ shaking during an earthquake using source estimates (magnitude and location) to estimate median‐expected peak ground motions with distance, then using these ground motions to determine median‐expected MMI and thus the extent of MMI IV shaking. Because median ground motions are used

We evaluate the timeliness and accuracy of ground‐motion‐based earthquake early warning (EEW) during the July 2019 M 6.4 and 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquakes. In 2018, we began retrospective and internal real‐time testing of the propagation of local undamped motion (PLUM) method for earthquake warning in California, Oregon, and Washington, with the potential that PLUM might one day be included in the ShakeAlert

During July 2019, a sequence of earthquakes, including an Mw 6.4 foreshock and an Mw 7.1 mainshock, occurred near Ridgecrest, California. ShakeAlert, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) earthquake early warning system being developed for the U.S. West Coast, was operational during this time, although public alerting was only available within Los Angeles County. ShakeAlert created alert messages for the

The existence of active faults near large cities poses significant risk to the life and property of its inhabitants as well as to its public infrastructure. Here, we investigate the interplay between seismicity, active faulting, and interseismic strain accumulation within a radius of ∼50 km from the metropolitan area of Athens, the capital of Greece. We find that during the period 2011–2018, a total

We present a damping modification factor (DMF) model for the total acceleration spectrum from subduction slab earthquakes. The model can be used for scaling a 5% damped design spectrum not associated with a particular earthquake that occurred in a subduction slab. The DMF model uses site‐period‐based site classes as the site‐effect proxy. DMF models were constructed based on the spectrum for 13 damping

We propose a single‐station approach to estimate near‐surface elastic structure using collocated pressure and seismic instruments. Our main result in this study is near‐surface rigidity (shear modulus) structure at 784 EarthScope Transportable Array (TA) stations in operation from mid‐2011 to the end of 2018 using coherent horizontal seismic and pressure signals at 0.02 Hz. We isolate time periods

New calibration for local magnitude (⁠ML⁠) was performed for Colombia. The territory was divided into five zones using reported attenuation values for different areas of the country and correlating this information with the mapped lithologies, the absence or presence of volcanic activity, and patterns in the hypocentral locations of seismicity. Seismic data from the Colombian National Seismic Network—Colombian

We present an approach for generating stochastic scenario rupture models and semistochastic broadband seismic waveforms that include validated P waves, an important feature for application to early warning systems testing. There are few observations of large magnitude earthquakes available for development and refinement of early warning procedures; thus, simulated data are a valuable supplement. We