Christopher J. Wills

The 2008 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Seismic Hazard Maps display earthquake ground motions for various probability levels across the United States and are applied in seismic provisions of building codes, insurance rate structures, risk assessments, and other public policy.

These maps show an estimate of the likelihood of earthquake ground motions, based on a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. Such analysis incorporates seismic and geologic information to consider the probability of all possible damaging earthquakes, calculates the potential range of ground motions for each potential earthquake, and arrives at a level of ground shaking that has a given probability, using the formulation first developed by Cornell (1968).

Media Point of Contact

Susan Blake
susan.blake@usda.gov

Apache Leap Special Management Area
Apache Leap SMA website