Pilot Andy Bachner’s account of the 1964 Alaska earthquake

On Friday, March 27, 1964, at about 4:30pm, a 22-year-old pilot named Andy Bachner took off from Fairbanks International Airport on a training flight for Wien Airlines. Alongside Bachner in the single-engine Tri-Pacer plane was the flight instructor, Don Edgar Jonz. Their instrument training flight took them into the clouds and north of Fairbanks 100 miles, in the vicinity of Beaver Creek. Approximately one hour into the flight, Bachner and Jonz abruptly lost all communication with the ground. Fearing a nuclear strike on Eielson and expecting to see Soviet fighter jets, Bachner continued to fly for approximately 30 minutes until fuel was a consideration, prompting them to return to Fairbanks. Upon landing back at Fairbanks, Bachner and Jonz learned about the catastrophic earthquake in southern Alaska. Jonz was asked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pilot a flight to southern Alaska to survey the earthquake and tsunami damage. Jonz invited Bachner to pilot the plane, allowing Bachner to gain additional instrument training. The two men boarded a Twin Bonanza plane owned by Frontier Flying Service and were provided with a fancy radio. They flew for approximately six hours that night . They live-radioed what they saw in the twilight, fire light, and light of the full moon, while surveying Anchorage, Whittier, Valdez, and Cordova, and then landing back in Fairbanks early March 28th. On Friday, March 27, 1964, at 5:36pm local time, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake struck south-central Alaska. The earthquake devastated Anchorage with its shaking, and it devastated coastal communities with its tsunami. To date, this was the second largest earthquake ever recorded on Earth (1960 magnitude 9.5 in Chile).This collection contains: (1) a pdf of the annotated text and (2) the unedited audio file of the full interview. The edited video interview can be seen on youtube at https://youtu.be/vVIgbBFwaj

Earthquake Stories from Minto and Nenana, Alaska

On Wednesday October 15, 1947 at 4:10pm local time, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Interior Alaska, near Healy. This is a collection of stories of six life-long Alaskan elders who felt this earthquake and shared their recollections in fall of 2014, sixty-seven years after the earthquake. Geraldine Charlie had recently turned 18 years old and worked in the village store in Minto when the earthquake hit. Geraldine was crouching down to weigh a bag of potatoes at the moment the earthquake hit. She felt dizzy and noticed Coleman lanterns swaying from side to side, and items shook off the shelves. Sarah Silas and Berkman Silas were also in Minto and had been married for three years. Sarah recalls watching her toddler son, who laughed as he tried to maintain his balance as the floor rolled back and forth under his feet. Berkman and other men were ice fishing near Little Goldstream Creek when the earthquake hit. Rafting ice caused the men to run for the shore. Paul Esau was near Tolovana working on the roof of their home. Caroline Ketzler was up in their food cache at their home up the Kantishna River. Henry Ketzler was in a cabin in Nenana and ran for the exit, only to hit the door frame as it shook with the entire house. These are their stories from 1947. Also discussed in these stories are the effects from the 1912 Katmai eruption, the 1937 Salcha earthquake, and the 1964 earthquake.These interviews were collected as part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation, grant EAR-1352688, “CAREER: Intraplate tectonics and deep crustal faulting in rural Alaska”. Support was also provided from a subaward from IRIS to UAF ("University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute in Support of EarthScope’s Transportable Array"). This subaward is awarded under Cooperative Agreement No. EAR-1261681 issued by the National Science Foundation under CFDA No. 47.050

Hypocenter estimation for 14 earthquakes in south-central Alaska (1929-1975)

We provide results from an analysis of 14 historical earthquakes in the region of Cook Inlet and Susitna, south-central Alaska. Using global arrival times of P and S waves, we estimate probabilistic hypocenters using the code NonLinLoc. We provide the complete results, as well as a set of plots to help interpret the likelihood of each earthquake being within the crust, on the subduction interface, or within the subducting Pacific slab.V. Silwal and C. Tape were supported by USGS Earthquake Hazards Program (contract G15AP00052)

The Historic Liturgy: Important or Adiaphoron? Yes

I humbly submit to you today that this is the current problem in our beloved synod, concerning the proper role of the historic liturgy. If we are going to begin to have an accurate understanding of the liturgy, we must carefully stay on the tightrope and avoid falling to one side or the other. Today I would like to focus on two polar elements concerning the historic liturgy and suggest several specific ways they can be kept in balance. In all of this, I hope to present five theological principles (or if you are Waltherian—theses) which will help guide us in our future liturgical discussions

Assessment of station metadata in Alaska based on analysis of Love waves from the 2012-04-11 Mw 8.6 offshore Sumatra earthquake

This report is part of a detailed investigation of a Mw 3.9 earthquake near Nenana, Alaska, that was triggered by Love waves from a Mw 8.6 offshore Sumatra earthquake. Results from that study appeared in Tape et al. (2013). We analyze all BH and HH channel waveforms that are available at the Alaska Earthquake Center. This report has three objectives: (1) to provide information that may help improve station metadata at Alaska stations; (2) to provide a snapshot of station performance in Alaska at one particular time (11-April-2012); (3) to provide details and figures on part of the waveform processing used in Tape et al. (2013)

A Proposed Prolegomenon for Normative Theological Ethics with a Special Emphasis on the Usus Didacticus of God\u27s Law

The purpose of this study is to examine and organize some of the current contrasting methodologies of theological ethics in an attempt to determine the Biblical method of choosing the moral option. This will be done in two different ways. In the first part, two common methods in moral philosophy, the deontological method and the teleological method, will be defined and illustrated. It will be demonstrated that Scriptural ethics has elements in common with both rule deontology and rule teleology. In the second part, the Scriptural method of moral reasoning will be examined more closely by comparing three different ways that numerous absolute prescriptive commands are used in theological ethics. Of the three methods discussed it will be shown that two contradict the moral methodology of the Holy Scriptures. Only the method of conflicting absolutism will prove to be satisfactory. This is the only method that contains elements in common with both rule deontology and rule teleology. The conclusion reached will stress that the Scriptural method of theological ethics not only emphasizes characteristics of both deontology and teleology, but it also emphasizes that these characteristics are to be used in a very precise and specific way. The Scriptural method is similar to rule deontology; however, when there is a conflict of duties the rule teleological element serves as the arbitrator to determine the lesser evil. When this is understood one can begin to have a prolegomenon for theological ethics that properly incorporates the usus didacticus of God\u27s law

Archival search for felt reports for the Alaska earthquake of August 27, 1904

This report documents a search of primary sources from 1904 to identify felt reports of the 1904-08-27 earthquake in central Alaska. The objective is to use the felt reports to get a better idea for where the earthquake occurred.This project was supported by NSF grant EAR-1352668

Streetlight Halos

The book treats streetlight halos, that is, atmospheric halos whose light source is nearby, rather than being the sun. Also see the elegant simulations of streetlight halos by Nicolas Lefaudeux at http://opticsaround.blogspot.com/2013/07/la-simulation-des-halos-divergent.htm

Analysis of regional seismograms and 3D synthetic seismograms for the 2016-01-24 Mw 7.1 Iniskin earthquake in southern Alaska

I perform two analyses to identify cases of seismogram clipping or other problems (e.g., data gaps) for the 2016-01-24 Mw 7.1 Iniskin, Alaska, earthquake. The first analysis is a comparison of synthetic and observed seismograms: three-component, displacement seismograms filtered between periods 4-80 s. The subset of 141 stations is limited to an oblique rectangular region that is 1200 km x 600 km (Figures 1 and 2) and used in a seismic wavefield simulation with a three-dimensional seismic velocity model. I identify 60 out of 141 stations that are suspected of clipping or other problems. Of the 81 good stations, only 8 are within 250 km of the Iniskin epicenter, and all 8 stations are outside of Cook Inlet basin, which strongly amplifies ground motion (both in data and in synthetics). The second, much simpler, analysis is to identify clipping based on the maximum counts on the waveforms. The max-counts approach reveals general agreeement with the classification based on long-period data and synthetics. The analysis suggests that (1) some recorded waveforms that exceed clipping levels may still be usable for some modeling purposes, and (2) some recorded waveforms that appear to be suitable for modeling purposes should probably be discarded due to clipping at high frequencies. The identification of suspected stations, along with the waveform comparisons, may help network operators assess the possibility of unexpected performance during the Mw 7.1 slab earthquake

Shrub expansion in Arctic Alaska: 50 years of change documented using aerial photography

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2004Evidence from arctic Alaska suggests that the terrestrial landscape is changing in response to warming. Between 1946 and 1951, several thousand low-altitude panchromatic oblique aerial photographs were taken as part of geologic reconnaissance and exploration of Alaska's Arctic Slope and Brooks Range. For this study, 202 of the landscapes in the old photographs were re-photographed. Comparison of the old and new photographs revealed an increase in shrub cover in the last half-century. The changes were observed over a 220,000 km2 tract of arctic tundra, and it is likely that they are more widespread. A quantitative method for comparing the photographs yielded an increase in alder shrub cover from 14 to 20%, with similar increases observed for willow and birch shrubs. This shrub expansion was observed in many landscape positions, including hill slopes, river terraces, and also river floodplains, where the increase in shrub vegetation has resulted in the narrowing and stabilization of floodplains. The regional expansion of shrubs documented in the photographs can only be explained by a perturbation operating on a similarly large scale. In the absence of large-scale disturbances like fire, the increase in shrubs documented here is most likely to be a product of elevated temperatures and other changes in climate favorable to shrub growth