Wasatch Fault Earthquake Floodmaps

I am currently looking for a UVU student to work on this new project! If you are interested in earthquakes and GIS (and preferably have taken a GIS class), drop me an email (michael.bunds@uvu.edu).

Anticipated future large earthquakes on the Wasatch fault at the foot of the mountains along the Wasatch Front will drop the valley floor up to ~2 meters near the foothills. This will tilt the valley floor towards the mountains, possibly causing flooding from the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake in their respective valleys. The potential for flooding has only been addressed previously in a relatively simplistic way with block models. In this project, we will use elastic deformation models and measured changes in natural earthquakes to better quantify the ground surface elevation change that is likely to occur in future large Wasatch fault earthquakes in the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys. This will be a fairly straight-forward exercise, especially for the Salt Lake Valley, because geometry of the Wasatch fault has already been gridded for modeling (as part of my Magna Earthquake research). The elevation change results will be brought into ArcGIS and subtracted from digital elevation models (DEMs) of existing valley topography to calculate post-earthquake DEMs. Finally, ArcGIS tools will be used to create flood maps using the post-earthquake DEMs.

The maps created will be of use in planning for future Wasatch Front earthquakes, and this project will be excellent for helping build GIS skills. The finished project will also make a terrific presentation at an international meeting, such as the American Geophysical Union's big Fall Meeting.