NSF Org:	EAR Division Of Earth Sciences
Recipient:	THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Initial Amendment Date:	May 24, 2006
Latest Amendment Date:	May 24, 2006
Award Number:	0609585
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Eva Zanzerkia EAR  Division Of Earth Sciences GEO  Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date:	July 1, 2006
End Date:	June 30, 2008 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$12,352.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$12,352.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2006 = $12,352.00
History of Investigator:	Meredith Nettles (Principal Investigator) nettles@ldeo.columbia.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	Columbia University 615 W 131ST ST NEW YORK NY  US  10027-7922 (212)854-6851
Sponsor Congressional District:	13
Primary Place of Performance:	Columbia University Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory Rt 9W Palisades NY  US  10964
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	17
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	F4N1QNPB95M4
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	Geophysics
Primary Program Source:	app-0106
Program Reference Code(s):	0000, 1576, OTHR
Program Element Code(s):	157400
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.050

ABSTRACT

The 1964 Alaska earthquake is the second-largest earthquake ever recorded instrumentally. Current
estimates of the long-period source characteristics of this earthquake, including the earthquake size
and faulting geometry and the timing and distribution of moment release, date from the 1970s. All
of these estimates were made before the development of modern methods of seismogram synthesis
and moment-tensor determination. The occurrence of the 26 December, 2004 Sumatra-Andaman
Islands earthquake (MW 9.2) has returned attention to the state of our knowledge about the
1964 Alaska earthquake, as the Alaska earthquake presents the most natural target for comparison.
The proposed research will make use of existing hand-digitized, high-quality surface-wave
seismograms from the 1964 mainshock in an inversion for the earthquake moment tensor, centroid
location and depth, and centroid time; effects of Earth's lateral velocity heterogeneity will be accounted
for in the inversion. Owing to the very large size of the 1964 earthquake, and to the fact that the available data correspond to late-arriving surface-wave orbits, several experiments will be carried out to validate the results obtained. Results obtained from this study will also be of direct use for comparative studies
of other large earthquakes, including the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman Islands earthquake. In addition,
the proposed effort to archive the available, hand-digitized data from the 1964 earthquake is
anticipated to benefit researchers interested in both earthquake dynamics and Earth structure.
The research will support an early-career scientist. At the conclusion of the project, the data used will be permanently archived to make them available for future use by other researchers.

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