Quantifying the erasure of earthquake surface ruptures from desert landscapes: Implications for seismic hazard assessment

Original Landscapes

DEMs of ~120x140m landscapes clipped from:

R1-10 = 2019 M7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake, 2019 lidar (Hudnut et al., 2020), and 

E1-10 = 2010 M7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake, 2010 lidar (OpenTopography, 2010).

Example: "E5.asc"

Degraded Landscapes

Linearly diffused using Landlab (Hobley et al., 2017; Barnhart et al., 2020) at timesteps (100, 1000, 5000, 10000 yr) using a k of 1 m^2/kyr.

Example: "e5_1000_001_eroded.asc"

Mapped Faults Shapefiles - E1_10_shps & R1_10_shps

Faults mapped on each degraded landscape using a systematic mapping process (Scott et al., 2023; Adam, 2023)

Ridgecrest DEM - rc_7_1_0424_utm.tif

0.014 m/pix DEM of a portion of the 2019 M7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake rupture, from 6 April 2024. Created from Structure from Motion using drone images. 

Degradation and analysis python code - landscape_evolution_earthquake_ruptures-main_260623.zip

A set of scripts to simulate the effect of surface processes on surface ruptures and quantify the information loss associated with landscape evolution over time. Includes options to simulate surface processes with linear and non-linear diffusion, implemented using open-access code landlab.

Updated 23 June 2026

References

Adam, R. (2023). Evaluation of remote mapping of active fault traces. Arizona State University.

Barnhart, K.R., Hutton, E.W.H., Tucker, G.E., Gasparini, NM., Istanbulluoglu, E., Hobley, D.E.J., Lyons, N.J., Mouchene, M., Nudurupati, S.S., Adams, J.M., Bandarogoda, C., 2020, Short communication: Landlab v2.0: A software package for Earth surface dynamics: Earth Surface Dynamics Discussions, doi: 10.5194/esurf-2020-12.

Hobley, D.E.J., Adams, J.M., Nudurupati, S.S., Hutton, E.W.H. Gasparini, N.M., Istanbulluoglu, E., and Tucker, G.E., 2017, Creative computing with Landlab: an open-source toolkit for building, coupling, and exploring two-dimensional numerical models of Earth-surface dynamics: Earth Surface Dynamics, v. 5, n. 1, p. 21-46, doi: 10.5194/esurf-5-21-2017.

Hudnut, K.W., B. Brooks, K. Scharer, J.L. Hernandez, T.E. Dawson, M.E. Oskin, R. Arrowsmith, C.A. Goulet, K. Blake, M.L. Boggs, S. Bork, C.L. Glennie, J.C. Fernandez-Diaz, A. Singhania, D. Hauser, S. Sorhus (2020). 2019 Ridgecrest, CA Post-Earthquake Lidar Collection. National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM). Distributed by OpenTopography. https://doi.org/10.5069/G9W0942Z.. Accessed: 2024-11-25  

Opentopography; El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake (4 April 2010) Rupture LiDAR Scan. Distributed by OpenTopography. https://doi.org/10.5069/G9TD9V7D . Accessed: 2024-11-25

Scott, C., Adam, R., Arrowsmith, R., Madugo, C., Powell, J., Ford, J., Gray, B., Koehler, R., Thompson, S., Sarmiento, A., Dawson, T., Kottke, A., Young, E., Williams, A., Kozaci, O., Oskin, M., Burgette, R., Streig, A., Seitz, G., … Ingersoll, S. (2023). Evaluating how well active fault mapping predicts earthquake surface-rupture locations. Geosphere. https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02611.1