Heidi Houston
  Professor
  Office: ATG-204
     ESS Mailing Address
  Phone: 206-616-7092
  Fax: 206-543-0489 (shared)
  Email: hhouston @ u.washington.edu
  Homepage:

  Research Groups: Seismology and Tectonics

Areas of Interest:
Observational Source Seismology; Earthquakes, subduction zones, tremor and slow slip, tsunamis.

Education:
Ph.D. : Caltech, 1987
M.S. : Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1981
B.S. : University of Washington, 1977

Current Research Interests:
Observational global seismology including physics of the earthquake source from broadband waveforms: seismically-radiated energy, relationship to fault mechanics, spatial and temporal details of the rupture process to assess variability and complexity, implications for earthquake hazard. Subduction processes including subduction zone seismicity, physical mechanisms of deep earthquakes and relationship to tectonic processes.

Selected Publications:

Houston, H., B. G. Delbridge, A. G. Wech, and K. C. Creager, Rapid tremor reversals in Cascadia generated by a weakened plate interface, Nature Geoscience, 4, 404-409, doi:10.1038/NGEO1157, 2011.

Vidale, J. E., and H. Houston, Slow slip: A new kind of earthquake, Physics Today, 65, 38-43, 2012.

Ghosh, A., J. E. Vidale, J. R. Sweet, K. C. Creager, A. G. Wech, H. Houston, and E. E. Brodsky, Rapid, continuous streaking of tremor in Cascadia, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 11, Q12010, doi:10.1029/2010GC003305, 2010.

Houston, H., Deep Earthquakes, v. 4 (Earthquake Seismology), p. 321-350,
in Treatise on Geophysics, ed. G. Schubert, Oxford, 2007.

Provost AS, Houston H, Stress orientations in northern and central California: Evidence for the evolution of frictional strength along the San Andreas plate boundary system, J Geophys Res, 108 (B3): 2175, 2003.

Houston H, Influence of depth, focal mechanism, and tectonic setting on the shape and duration of earthquake source time functions, J Geophys Res, 106, 11137-11150, 2001.

Ishii M, Shearer PM, Houston H, Vidale J, Extent, duration and speed of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake imaged by the Hi-Net array, Nature, 435 (7044): 933-936 JUN 16, 2005.

All peer reviewed.