[California] Introductions

[Moskovitz, Bob]

Hello All,
 
I'm a Research Analyst I (GIS) in the California Geological Surveys(CGS) Seismic Hazards Zonation Project.  There are not many Open Source advocates here, but I am hoping to change that.  I am mainly involved in writing various programs that implements our Liquefaction(see 1) and Earthquake Induced Landslide(see 2) Zones.  These programs range from simple data translators written in Perl to a program that calculates liquefaction potential using borehole, ground water, and peak ground acceleration using the Intergraph Modular GIS Environment (MGE) programming language called MDL (a derivative of the C Programming Language).
 
Since MGE is obsolete, we have been migrating to Intergraph's Geomedia Professional and Geomedia Grid.  These programs have their strength (spatial queries, functional attributes, etc) and weaknesses (problem importing/exporting shapefiles as well as Geotiffs, coordinate system and projection are often messed up, inadequate grid classifier, etc.)  I know that FOSS GIS can do what we need to do and I'm hoping that a California Chapter of OSGEO could be a great help.
 
Bob
 
 
(1) Liquefaction occurs when loose, water-saturated sediments lose strength and fail during strong ground
shaking. Liquefaction is defined as the transformation of granular material from a solid state into a
liquefied state as a consequence of increased pore-water pressure. The process of zonation for liquefaction
combines Quaternary geologic mapping, historical ground-water information and subsurface geotechnical
data. The liquefaction hazard Zone of Required Investigation boundaries are based on the presence of
shallow (< 40 feet depth) historic groundwater in uncompacted sands and silts deposited during the last
15,000 years and sufficiently strong levels of earthquake shaking expected during the next 50 years.

 
(2)Landslides tend to occur in weak soil and rock on sloping terrain. The Zone of Required Investigation for
earthquake-induced landslides generally indicate areas characterized by steep slopes composed of weak
materials that may fail when shaken by an earthquake. The process for zonation of earthquake-induced
landslides incorporates expected levels of future earthquake shaking, evidence of existing landslides, slope
gradient and strength of hillslope materials.
 

Bob Moskovitz 
Seismic Hazard Zonation Project
California Geological Survey 
http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/shzp<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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