Active tectonics and the LiDAR revolution

Andrew Meigs*
COLLEGE OF EARTH, OCEAN, AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, 104 CEOAS ADMINISTRATION HALL, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY, CORVALLIS, OREGON 97331, USA

ABSTRACT

A revolution in remote sensing, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) laser altimetry swath mapping, reveals the details of topographic fea-
tures at such high resolution that they have transformed our understanding of tectonic forcing of the shape of the Earth’s surface. Meter-
scale DEMs (digital elevation models) capture fault offsets, fault zone structure, off-fault deformation, and landscape properties at microgeo-
morphic scale, highlighting that the surface faithfully records the complexity and sensitivity of deformation in detail.

LITHOSPHERE doi: 10.1130/RF.L004.1

New techniques for surface imaging and ing facility, came into existence in 2003 (Carter etrating vegetation, and presumably hitting the
analysis continue to inform and challenge our et al., 2007). The applications of LiDAR data ground. An example of the spatial and verti-
understanding of the Earth’s surface evolution. seem boundless. LiDAR data are used in fields cal resolution of high quality data is provided
A Mw 7.3 earthquake in the eastern California that include engineering, planning, forestry and by surveys funded and hosted by the Oregon
shear zone (the 1992 Landers earthquake [Sieh ecology, glaciology, geomorphology, and active LiDAR Consortium. The Consortium, formed
et al., 1993]), for example, saw the debut of tectonics. What are these data and why are they by the Oregon Department of Geology and
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry so alluring? Mineral Industries in partnership with a host
as a means for measuring the coseismic dis- The principle underlying LiDAR surveying of public and private entities, requires data
placement field of an earthquake (Massonnet is relatively straight-forward; a laser rapidly collected with eight point-per-square-meter
et al., 1993). Stunning SAR images revealed emits light pulses that are reflected back from density and <6-cm RMSE (root-mean-square
both the displacement along the fault, measure- any object they strike. The travel time between error) vertical accuracy (Fig. 1) (Luccio, 2013;
ments typically made via labor-intensive field the instrument and the object are used in com- Madin et al., 2010). Data with this resolu-
methods, as well as off-fault deformation in a bination with the instrument location and ori- tion generated through the consortium cover
90 × 100 km area surrounding the 80-km-long entation to determine the absolute position of more than 16,000,000 acres in Oregon (http://
surface rupture. Whereas the use of landforms every object that reflects the light (Ackermann, www.oregongeology.org/dogamilidarviewer/;
as strain markers to characterize active fault- 1999; Carter et al., 2007; Harding, 2000). Luccio, 2013).
ing and folding was established decades earlier LiDAR data used in the Earth sciences are most A recent paper published in Lithosphere by
(e.g., Wallace, 1968), the Landers SAR images often collected via either ground-based terres- Barth et al. (2012, v. 4, p. 435–448) provides
demonstrated that the Earth’s surface records trial laser scanning surveys (TLS) or airborne wonderful illustration of the power of high-
earthquake deformation to a greater degree laser swath mapping (ALSM) of large tracts. resolution LiDAR topographic data. Profound
than previously known. Suddenly, time series Airborne LiDAR data are collected by affixing lineaments mark the topographic expression of
analysis of surface imagery became a key tool a laser to an aircraft, controlling for the air- strike slip faults such as the San Andreas fault
for inversion of coseismic and postseismic data craft location using differential kinematic GPS in California (Wallace, 1990) and the Alpine
sets, for modeling static stress changes on faults (global positioning systems) with on-board and fault in New Zealand, the focus of the Barth et
and on neighboring faults, and a host of other ground-based base stations, and flying a series al. study. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
geological and geophysical applications (e.g., of overlapping swaths over the survey area DEM (30-m resolution) data reveal the remark-
Fialko et al., 2002). (Harding, 2000). Because current lasers send able linearity of the Alpine fault (http://photo-
Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) topo- up to 150,000 pulses per second (Carter et al., journal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06661). In con-
graphic surveying takes Earth surface imaging 2007), ALSM bathes the survey area with laser trast, DEMs generated from LiDAR along a 20
to a new level because of its resolution and its pulses that produce returns off of any object km-long reach of the Alpine fault between the
wide availability in the public domain. A search between the aircraft and the Earth’s surface. Waiho River at Franz Joseph and the Whataroa
in Google Scholar using the key words “light Flying over a forest, for example, yields a 3 River to the northeast illustrate the nonlin-
detection and ranging” results in ~780,000 dimensional set of points that includes returns ear, step-like surface expression of the fault at
hits—an astounding number given that the first from the forest canopy, the ground surface, and scales of 1–10’s of meters. Whereas the scale-
papers in the Earth sciences to use these data from any object in between. A “point cloud” dependent nature of the topology fault is well
started appearing after ~1995 (e.g., Krabill et data set results from the swath mapping. Most known (Norris and Cooper, 1995), the unique
al., 1995). The National Center for Airborne Earth science users utilize the “bare earth” contribution of the Barth et al. (2012) study is
Laser Mapping (NCALM), a National Science model, which is a very high-resolution digi- that the new high-resolution data allow for the
Foundation (NSF) data collection and process- tal elevation model (DEM) created from the kinematic relationship between strike- and dip-
last returns during a survey—the pulses that slip faults to be characterized at the scale of 10’s
*E-mail: meigsa@geo.oregonstate.edu traveled the farthest from the scanner, pen- of meters. Not only did these new data reveal the

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 Active tectonics and the LiDAR revolution | RESEARCH FOCUS
access for these data (http://pugetsoundlidar.org/).
The Oregon LiDAR Consortium followed the
open access model (http://www.oregongeology
.org/sub/projects/olc/). The National Center for
Laser Altimetry (NCALM) maintains instru-
ments for use by research investigators, has a
seed program for graduate student research proj-
ects, and a litany of other products and services
for the research community (http://www.ncalm
.cive.uh.edu/). NCALM, regional consortia, and
other LiDAR databases now collaborate with
OpenTopography, which is an NSF-supported
data warehouse that distributes analysis software,
houses tutorials and short courses, and other prod-
ucts in addition to distributing data (http://www
.opentopography.org/). The data sets are large, but
the analysis programs are becoming increasingly
optimized to handle these data. Tools available
through OpenTopography allow users to visual-
ize LiDAR point clouds and process bare earth
DEMs from the original data. OpenTopography
facilitates processing large data sets through the
Figure 1. Comparison of 30 m Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (A) and 1 m LiDAR data (B) from
San Diego Super Computer Facility.
the Oregon LiDAR Consortium of an active fault in the Klamath Basin in south-central Oregon. Note To get started learning how to visualize
that the presence of a fault is indicated by the strong gray-scale contrast running from top left to and analyze of LiDAR data, OpenTopography
lower right across the 30 m data. In the 1 m LiDAR digital elevation model, multiple fault splays, has materials from a number of excellent short
right lateral offset of the streams, and the normal separation across the fault zone is well resolved courses and tutorials archived on their education
topographically. Figure produced by Trevor Waldien (Oregon State University). and training page (http://www.opentopography
.org/index.php/resources/). A particularly good
place to start is the short course taught by Ian
detailed structural relations along the fault seg- previously unknown active fault traces. “High- Madin of the Oregon Department of Geologi-
ments, dozens of new fault segments and folds Resolution Lidar Topography of the Puget cal and Mineral Industries; Ralph Haugerud,
were discovered. The data and analysis suggest Lowland, Washington” found, for the first time, U.S. Geological Survey; Chris Crosby, Open
that through-going surface rupture of the Alpine splays of the Seattle fault system, which last had Topography, San Diego Supercomputer Center;
fault involves transfer of slip between neighbor- an earthquake ~1100 years ago (Bucknam et al., and Mike Oskin of the University of California,
ing strike-slip sections of the fault via dip-slip 1992), provided topographic control for location Davis (UC Davis) at the 2009 Annual Meeting
faulting and associated hanging-wall folding in of trench sites, and spawned a flurry of papers of the Geological Society of America. Topics
newly discovered structural wedges. on the earthquake hazards, structure, and paleo- covered in this tutorial include characteristics
A few early papers recognized the signifi- seismic history of numerous faults throughout of a raw data set, DEM creation, visualization
cance of LiDAR technology in understanding the Puget Lowland (e.g., Johnson et al., 2004). strategies, and data acquisition and quality. A
patterns of active faulting, which the Barth et al. Finally, the “B4” LiDAR surveyed the southern second valuable short course geared toward
(2012) paper adds to the large and rapidly grow- San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems in using LiDAR data in active fault studies is the
ing body of literature based on LiDAR data. order to provide a high-resolution pre-earth- “Imaging and Analyzing Southern Califor-
The first group to use ALSM data conducted quake topographic data set (Bevis et al., 2005). nia’s Active Faults with High-Resolution Lidar
a LiDAR survey as part of the post-seismic The southern segment of the San Andreas fault Topography” tutorial from the course held at
response to the Mw 7.1 Hector Mine earthquake was chosen because it is the only reach of the UC Davis in 2011. In addition to covering DEM
in southern California in 1999 (Hudnut et al., fault that has not ruptured historically and creation and visualization, this course intro-
2002). Hudnut et al.’s (2002) paper represented because more than 400 years have apparently duces the user to LaDiCaoz, which is a software
a breakthrough because they demonstrated that elapsed since the last earthquake (Weldon et package developed by Ramon Arrowsmith and
high-resolution topographic surveying using al., 2005). Capturing the details of the surface his students at Arizona State University to quan-
ALSM yielded topographic data with an accu- rupture and the topographic change follow- tify lateral displacements across faults from
racy and resolution that exceeded what could ing the next southern San Andreas earthquake LiDAR DEMs (Zielke and Arrowsmith, 2012).
be generated using traditional methods. More- was the central objective of the B4 project, an Tools for back slipping and offset reconstruc-
over, the comprehensive mapping along the full experimental design that foreshadowed emerg- tion are one of the notable capabilities unique to
length of the rupture showed that ALSM-based ing cutting-edge research that exploits pre- and LaDiCaoz and of use for making high accuracy,
measurement of offset agreed well with field post-seismic surveys along faults (Nissen et al., high precision measurements of offset. A third
measurements and allowed for visualization in 2012; Oskin et al., 2012). useful course focuses on applications of LiDAR
three dimensions. A second key paper appeared LiDAR data sources are proliferating and analysis in geomorphology. The “New Tools in
the following year. Haugerud et al. (2003) much of the data are in the public domain. The Process-Based Analysis of Lidar Topographic
showed that LiDAR sees through trees and finds Puget Sound LiDAR Consortium pioneered open Data” short course held in 2010 at the University

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 A. MEIGS

structure and evolution, and fault slip accrued

A B on earthquake and longer timescales. Quantita-
tive analysis of fault offsets at sub-meter scale
are now possible along the length of any fault
system surveyed with LiDAR, which allows for
measurement of slip in the last earthquake event
along faults where those data do not exist (Had-
dad et al., 2011). LiDAR data analyzed with
tools such as LaDiCaoz enable new measure-
ment of offset in key historical earthquakes. A
C study that revisited the 1857 Fort Tejon earth-
quake on the south-central San Andreas fault,
for example, found additional offsets to those
from conventional field study and indicated that
the coseismic offsets from the last earthquake
along the Carrizo Plain were about half the
widely accepted values (Fig. 2A–C) (Sieh, 1978;
X'
11

Zielke et al., 2010, 2012). LiDAR data also per-

D
1'
5

°3
°3

11

mit direct measurement of landscape evolution

P
32
9'

DI

5
°3

and response times to tectonic perturbations

8'

(Hilley and Arrowsmith, 2008), tectonic geo-

Borreg morphologic phenomenon that are only inferred
o Fault
DIP

from numerical models at present (Whipple and

Meade, 2006). Given that topographic scale is
one variable that influences landscape response
Paso time (Whipple, 2001), structural-topographic
Infer features such as pressure ridges along strike slip
ior A
0'

ccom
°3

faults act as “mini” mountain ranges to explore

32

mod
ation hillslope, channel, and drainage basin response
DIP

Zone to tectonic forcing. The great advantage is that

+1.5 m
P

drainage basins evolve on length scales of

DI
Δ Elevation

meters to tens of meters and timescales of hun-

N

dreds to thousands of years. Finally, before and

O
R
TH

after earthquake differential LiDAR surveys, as

DIP

Lag
Sala una anticipated by the B4 experiment along the San
500 m da F
-2.5 m X ault Andreas fault system, represents a very exciting
frontier. A “before” LiDAR survey along the El
E Paso Inferior (east dip) Borrego 100pt Median Mayor–Cucapah fault fortuitously allowed for a
Δ Elev. (m)

0 differential analysis of the surface affects associ-

-1 X ated with a Mw 7.2 earthquake in Baja California
-4 -2.7 x 10-4 in 2010 (Fig. 2D–E) (Oskin et al., 2012). Oskin
-2 Laguna Salada 5.3 x 10 400µstr -4 X'
0m 1000 m 2000 m 6.6 x 10 et al. (2012) used differencing of the before and
after point cloud data to characterize both the
Figure 2. Two examples of cutting edge LiDAR analysis. Figures 2A–C, highlight the Zielke et al. (2010)
channel offset by the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain during the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake
on- and off-fault deformation resulting from the
(Fig. 2A), a plot from LaDiCaoz showing the fit of the channel after backslipping the walls of the fault earthquake. The analysis revealed the subtleties
(red and blue profiles; Fig. 2B), and the best-fit slip estimate for the channel (Fig. 2C). Fault offset and complexities of the surface rupture as well
and distributed deformation revealed by differential LiDAR analysis of before and after surveys in the as blind faulting and distributed deformation
region of the El Mayor–Cucapah earthquake. Oskin et al.’s (2012) work quantified the magnitude of that conventional post-earthquake studies were
change (Fig. 2D), which in the low relief, low surface sloping regions resulted from the combination unlikely to resolve. As explained in the Oskin
of fault offset, tilt, and bending moment strain (Fig. 2E). Modified from Zielke et al. (2010) and Oskin
et al. (2012) paper, the pre-earthquake data are
et al. (2012) with permission from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
of low resolution, data with very accurate ele-
vations despite having low point density. One
can only imagine what will be learned when
Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) tat information, techniques for data filtering and an earthquake happens along a fault with high-
by Dorothy Merritts (Franklin and Marshall smoothing, and change detection strategies. resolution before and after LiDAR data.
College) and Noah Snyder (Boston College) What are the frontiers of LiDAR analy-
included modules for geomorphic analysis, sis in tectonically active landscapes? Clearly, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
in addition to covering active fault character- studies of active fault traces such as that in the Several people contributed to this review and are thanked.
Trevor Waldien (OSU) created the images in Figure 1. Data
ization. Topics in geomorphic analysis include Barth et al. (2012) study will continue to pro- used in Figure 1B are from the DOGAMI Oregon LiDAR Con-
extraction of river channel properties and habi- vide new insight in fault kinematics, fault zone sortium. Olaf Zielke provided Figure 2A–C and Mike Oskin

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 Active tectonics and the LiDAR revolution | RESEARCH FOCUS
provided Figure 2D–E. Ramon Arrowsmith, Eduardo Guer- Topography of the Puget Lowland, Washington—A mation from the El Mayor–Cucapah earthquake
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response to uplift along the Dragon’s Back pressure with the great 1857 earthquake: Bulletin of the Seismo-
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