2018 Mw 7.1 Anchorage Earthquake
The RAPID facility supported numerous reconnaissance projects following the magnitude 7.1 Mw December 9, 2018, Anchorage, AK, earthquake that caused significant damage to buildings, roads, and infrastructure in the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alex Grant of the USGS used a RAPID Facility imaging system (Canon DSLR camera and range finder) to document surface and lateral spreading cracks near Anchorage.
In support of a GEER project, RAPID staff trained Georgia Institute of Technology field researcher Fikret Atalay on its ATOM Seismic Data Acquisition System and Nanometrics Trillium Seismometers. Atalay performed a multi-channel analysis of surface wave surveys at several sites across Anchorage five months following the 2018 earthquake.
In four separate deployments, the RAPID Facility sent instrumentation and field technicians to capture perishable spatial data on a series of rock slopes near Palmer, AK. The objectives were to quantify temporal changes in rockfall magnitude for well-characterized slopes shaken by the 2018 Anchorage earthquake. Instrumentation included a long-range scanner (Maptek I-Site LR3) and survey GPS receivers (Leica GS18T).
For the fifth trip in 2020, Professor Margaret Darrow of the University of Alaska Fairbanks used the Maptek LR3 laser scanner and Leica GS18 GNSS antennas to collect terrestrial lidar data of unstable rock slopes along the Glenn and Parks highways in Alaska resulting from the 2018 earthquake. Due to the pandemic, RAPID technical staff could not travel with the instrumentation to Alaska and created comprehensive instructional videos specifically for the project’s instrumentation operation needs.
