Attenuation of Modified Mercalli intensity with distance from the epicenter

1975 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. F. Howell ◽  
T. R. Schultz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Absorption Coefficient ◽  
Surface Displacement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cube Root ◽  
Depth Of Focus ◽  
The West ◽  
Eastern Province ◽  
San Andreas

abstract Thirteen simple formulas describing the attenuation of Modified Mercalli (MM) intensity are compared to determine which best predicts observed values in North America. The equation (19) ln I = ln I o + a 2 − b 2 ln Δ − c 2 Δ based on the assumption that intensity is related to energy by the equation (12) I = k E P appears to be the most useful, although it is not the most precise. P was found to be approximately 1/6, indicating that MM intensity is proportional to the sixth root of energy or the cube root of amplitude. The United States and southern Canada are divided into three attenuation provinces: a San Andreas province with an energy absorption coefficient of 0.015/km, an Eastern province with an absorption coefficient of 0.0031/km and a Cordilleran province with an absorption coefficient of 0.0063/km. The different rates of absorption can be explained as the result of slightly greater average focal depths in the East than in the West, although the data are too scattered to prove that this is the cause. Greater depth of focus, especially if low-angle faulting is involved, would explain the lack of surface displacement with eastern earthquakes.

A comparison of earthquake damage areas as a function of magnitude across the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1064-1080 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Bollinger ◽  
M. C. Chapman ◽  
M. S. Sibol
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Ground Motion ◽  
Epicentral Distance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Similar Response ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
The West

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between earthquake magnitude and the size of damage areas in the eastern and western United States. To quantify damage area as a function of moment magnitude (M), 149 MMI VI and VII areas for 109 earthquakes (88 in the western United States, 21 in the eastern United States and Canada) were measured. Regression of isoseismal areas versus M indicated that areas in the East were larger than those in the West, at both intensity levels, by an average 5 × in the M 4.5 to 7.5 range. In terms of radii for circles of equivalent area, these results indicate that damaging ground motion from shocks of the same magnitude extend 2 × the epicentral distance in eastern North America compared to the West. To determine source and site parameters consistent with the above results, response spectral levels for eastern North America were stochastically simulated and compared with response spectral ordinates derived from recorded strong ground motion data in the western United States. Stress-drop values of 200 bars, combined with a surficial 2-km-thick low velocity “sedimentary” layer over rock basement, produced results that are compatible with the intensity observations, i.e., similar response spectral levels in the east at approximately twice their epicentral distance in the western U.S. distance. These results suggest that ground motion modeling in eastern North America may need to incorporate source and site parameters different from those presently in general use. The results are also of importance to eastern U.S. hazard assessments as they require allowance for the larger damage areas in preparedness and mitigation programs.

Buddhism in the West (North America and Europe)

Buddhism ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott A. Mitchell ◽  
Thomas Calobrisi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
The West ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
European Culture ◽  
The Subject

The study of Buddhism in the West is built on the pioneering work of a handful of scholars in the mid-1970s. These individuals were bold enough to take the subject seriously within a reluctant academic discipline. Charles Prebish’s American Buddhism (1979) set the standard and many terms of debate for the decades to come. The field has grown considerably, despite a perceived lack of methodological sophistication (see Numrich 2008, cited under General Overviews). Scholars in this area generally approach the subject from one of three directions: area studies (Buddhism in the United States, Buddhism in France, etc.), something of a reverse area studies (e.g., Japanese Buddhism in the United States, Theravada in Britain), or topical studies (e.g., ritual studies, immigration and ethnicity, Buddhism and psychology). The most wide-reaching debates in the field generally revolve around questions of identification or classification and can manifest themselves in a variety of ways. For example, some question what “the West” is meant to signify, placing their research squarely in the context of postcolonial studies, transnational studies, or the construction of Buddhist modernism (McMahan 2002, cited under Ch’an, Zen, Sŏn). Others, such as Tweed 2002 (cited under Matters of Identity), recognize the difficulty of defining what constitutes a Western Buddhist when Buddhist culture has so thoroughly permeated the broader cultural milieu. Serving as a backdrop to these issues has been the wide-ranging and perennial debate regarding the “two Buddhisms” typology that, over the years since Prebish coined the phrase in 1979, has been considered, reconsidered, rearticulated, expanded to three Buddhisms, and renamed in a variety of ways. This article reflects these methodological approaches and topical debates, and it includes relevant sources from postcolonial studies, ritual studies, and engaged Buddhism. As mentioned, “the West” as an area of study is itself somewhat contested. Is the West limited to areas dominated by European culture? Do we extend this category to Australia and Oceania? For the sake of brevity, this article focuses on North America and Europe.

scholarly journals Herbert Jasper: an Appreciation and a Tribute on His 90th Birthday

1996 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-308
Author(s):  
Frederick Andermann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Young People ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
The United States ◽  
90Th Birthday ◽  
The West ◽  
American Academy Of Neurology ◽  
Rare Opportunity

It is particularly fitting that at this reception of members of the Canadian Neurological and Clinical Neurophysiologists Societies at the American Academy of Neurology we should honour Dr. Herbert Jasper. He is, at the age of 90, a living legend in the neurosciences. It is a rare opportunity for the young people who have followed him to meet a pioneer of his generation, let alone somebody who continues to this day to exercise his wise counsel and his extraordinary grasp of the working of the human brain.Herbert Jasper, like Wilder Penfield, was born in the west of the United States, and, like his friend and colleague, became a Canadian and a founder of Canadian Neuroscience.Jasper started his career as a psychologist of physiological persuasion and studied with Lapique who is remembered for his studies on chronaxie, in Paris. He became aware of Berger’s writings on the electroencephalogram and realized early the enormous potential of being able to record the electrical activity generated by the human brain. In the 30s, two schools of epilepsy developed in North America: the medical with William Lennox in Boston, and the surgical with Wilder Penfield in Montreal.

scholarly journals Sufism in the West

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-123
Author(s):  
Markus Dressler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic Mysticism ◽  
Muslim Majority

This edited volume, along with David Westerlund’s edited Sufism in Europeand North America (RoutledgeCurzon: 2004), are pioneering works, sincethe systematic study of this topic is still in its infancy. Its introduction andnine chapters bring together anthropological, historical, Islamicist, and sociologicalperspectives on questions of identity as regards Sufism’s doublemarginalization within a non-Muslim majority environment and within thebroader Islamic discourse. The Sufis’ need to position themselves againstand reconcile themselves with a variety of others causes western Sufis toemploy a fascinating kaleidoscope of strategies ranging from assimilation toconfrontation and appropriation.Jamal Malik’s introduction surveys Islamic mysticism and the “majorthemes of diasporic Sufism” (pp. 20-25). He presents the complex interrelatednessof ethnic, cultural, religious, and generational identities andaddresses important issues concerning representation, knowledge production,and adaptation. His conclusion that “Sufism – intellectually as well associologically – may eventually become mainstream Islam itself due toits versatile potential, especially in the wake of what has been called thefailure of political Islam worldwide” (p. 25), however, is rather bold.Nevertheless, as Ron Geaves shows, one has to acknowledge that, at leastin Great Britain and the United States, Sufis have begun to confront anti-Sufi rhetoric more openly. He describes Sufi-Muslim attempts to monopolizethe term ahl al-sunnah wa al-jam`ah (people of the tradition and the ...

scholarly journals Russet Burbank: No Ordinary Potato

HortScience ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Brown
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
New York State ◽  
Potato Cultivar ◽  
Plant Introduction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Russet Burbank ◽  
High Yield ◽  
The West

The ‘Russet Burbank’ potato cultivar currently occupies first place in acreage planted in North America and is worth in the United States $1.4 billion annually. It is a sport of ‘Burbank's Seedling’, which was selected by Luther Burbank in 1873. The ancestry of Burbank stems from a plant introduction brought to the United States by the Rev. Chauncey Goodrich of New York State in 1853. The priorities of potato breeding had been transformed by repetitive crop failures caused by the emergence of the plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans. Modern testing suggests that derivatives of Goodrich’s potatoes were slightly more resistant to Phytophthora. Burbank discovered a single fruit on one of these derivatives, ‘Early Rose’, in his mother’s garden. Taking the 23 true seeds, he nursed them to full-sized plants and selected ultimately No. 15. It produced an unusually high yield of large, very oblong tubers, stored well, and was a good eating potato. Burbank’s life was destined for a long career in California and he attempted to sell the clone to J.H.J. Gregory of Gregory’s Honest Seeds, a successful businessman. Ultimately Gregory agreed to buy it for $150, far less than Burbank wanted, but enough to propel him to California. Gregory named the potato ‘Burbank's Seedling’, which no doubt engendered fame for the entrepreneur. Luther Burbank had been allowed by Gregory to keep 10 tubers, which became the seed source for the ‘Burbank's Seedling’ to spread north and south along the West Coast of North America with a crop value, stated by Burbank, of $14 million in 1914. It is not clear that Luther Burbank prospered from ‘Burbank's Seedling’ in the West. A skin sport with a russet skin was found in Colorado in 1902 and was advertised by a seed company under the name ‘Netted Gem’. ‘Burbank's Seedling’ per se disappeared from commerce and ‘Netted Gem’ slowly increased, finding a special niche in production of French fry potatoes. It is clear that Luther Burbank gained tremendous insight into the dynamics of hybridization in revealing genetic variation from clonally propagated species. During the rest of his career he would use this technique to produce new and amazing forms of numerous food and ornamental species. ‘Burbank's Seedling’ was his entrez into the world of plant breeding.

4. War for independence

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Allison
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
West Indies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
The West ◽  
War For Independence ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
American Army

‘War for independence’ explains the strategies of the British under Generals John Burgoyne and Charles Cornwallis and of Washington's American army. In February 1778, King Louis XVI of France recognized the independence of the United States and pledged to fight against the British. France sent men and arms to America; more ominously for Britain, it could also attack the West Indies and even England. Spain declared war on England in April 1779, not to help Americans but to retake Gibraltar and weaken Britain in the West Indies and North America. Independence was finally achieved in 1783, but could the new nation create a government that would sustain independence, preserve individual liberty, and repay its debts?

Magic and Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sabina Magliocco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Spirit World

This essay introduces a special issue of Nova Religio on magic and politics in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The articles in this issue address a gap in the literature examining intersections of religion, magic, and politics in contemporary North America. They approach political magic as an essentially religious phenomenon, in that it deals with the spirit world and attempts to motivate human behavior through the use of symbols. Covering a range of practices from the far right to the far left, the articles argue against prevailing scholarly treatments of the use of esoteric technologies as a predominantly right-wing phenomenon, showing how they have also been operationalized by the left in recent history. They showcase the creativity of magic as a form of human cultural expression, and demonstrate how magic coexists with rationality in contemporary western settings.

Mafias on the Move

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
At Will

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document