Chelsea Scott

I serve as an Assistant Research Professor and former NSF postdoctoral scholar at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.  In my research, I  integrate remote sensing and field-based observations of earthquake activity over different timescales to  understand how tectonic forces drive seismic activity and surface processes shape the Earth's landscape. My research focuses on the following questions:

• Surface rupturing strike-slip earthquakes: How can the on-fault and near-field surface deformation be best measured with geodesy? What fraction of the total moment is released on the principal fault? 

• What are the transient and permanent landscape changes following a decadal scale rain storm in the the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile?

• Do ancient tectono-geomorphic markers in the Atacama Desert record the strain field produced by great earthquakes on the South America- Nazca subduction zone?

• Do great subduction zone earthquakes trigger backarc earthquakes? 

• What is the uncertainty in fault geometry parameters due to atmospheric noise in InSAR data?    

To answer these questions, I use InSAR, lidar, differential topography, and field observations coupled with inverse theory and other computational techniques.