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The need to accurately document the spatiotemporal distribution of earthquakegenerated strong ground motions is essential for evaluating the seismic vulnerability of sites of critical infrastructure. Understanding the threshold for maximum earthquakeinduced ground motions at such sites provides valuable information to seismologists, earthquake engineers, local agencies, and policymakers when determining ground motion hazards of seismically sensitive infrastructures. In this context, fragile geologic features such as precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) serve as negative evidence for earthquake-induced ground motions and provide important physical constraints on the upper limits of ground motions. The three-dimensional (3D) shape of a PBR is a critical factor in determining its static stability and thus susceptibility to toppling during strong ground shaking events. Furthermore, the geomorphic settings of PBRs provide important controls on PBR exhumation histories that are interpreted from surface exposure dating methods. In this paper, we present PBRslenderness, a MATLAB-based program that evaluates the two-dimensional (2D) static stabilities of PBRs from unconstrained digital photographs. The program's graphical user interface allows users to interactively digitize a PBR and calculates the 2D geometric parameters that define its static stability. A reproducibility study showed that our 2D calculations compare well against their counterparts that were computed in 3D (R2 = 0.77-0.98 for 22 samples). A sensitivity study for single-user and multiuser digitization routines further confirmed the reproducibility of PBRslenderness estimates (coefficients of variation cv = 4.3%-6.5% for 100 runs; R2 = 0.87-0.99 for 20 PBRs). We used PBRslenderness to analyze 261 PBRs in a low-seismicity setting to investigate the local geomorphic controls on PBR stability and preservation. PBRslenderness showed that a PBR's shape strongly controls its static stability and that there is no relationship between a PBR's stability and its geomorphic location in a drainage basin. However, the geomorphic settings of PBRs control their preservation potential by restricting their formation to hillslope gradients <40°and the upper reaches of drainage basins. Such examples of our program's utility have led to its use in archival efforts of PBRs in southern California and Nevada, USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paleoseismic investigations aim to document past earthquake characteristics such as rupture location, frequency, distribution of slip, and ground shaking intensity-critical parameters for improved understanding of earthquake processes and refined earthquake forecasts. These investigations increasingly rely on high-resolution (<1 m) digital elevation models (DEMs) to measure earthquake-related ground deformation and perform process-oriented analyses. Three case studies demonstrate airborne and terrestrial laser scanning (ALS and TLS) for paleoseismic research. Case 1 illustrates rapid production of accurate, high-resolution, and georeferenced three-dimensional (3D) orthophotographs of stratigraphic and fault relationships in trench exposures. TLS scans reduced the preparation time of the trench and provided 3D visualization and reconstruction of strata, contacts, and permanent digital archival of the trench. Case 2 illustrates quantifi cation of fault scarp degradation rates using repeat topographic surveys. The topographic surveys of the scarps formed in the 1992 Landers (California) earthquake documented the centimeter-scale erosional landforms developed by repeated winter storm-driven erosion, particularly in narrow channels crossing the surface rupture. Vertical and headward incision rates of channels were as much as ~6.25 cm/yr and ~62.5 cm/yr, respectively. Case 3 illustrates characterization of the 3D shape and geomorphic setting of precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) that serve as negative indicators for strong ground motions. Landscape morphometry computed from ALS-derived DEMs showed that PBRs are preserved on hillslope angles between 10° and 40° and contributing areas (per unit contour length) between 5 and 30 m2/m. This situation refi nes interpretations of PBR exhumation rates and thus their effectiveness as paleoseismometers. Given that earthquakes disrupt Earth's surface at centimeter to meter scales and that depositional and erosional responses typically operate on similar scales, ALS and TLS provide the absolute measurement capability suffi cient to characterize these changes in challenging geometric arrangements, and thus demonstrate their value as effective analytical tools in paleoseismology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]