Phone: (510) 505-2579
e-mail: Marleen.Nyst@rms.com

Risk Management Solutions, Inc.
7015 Gateway Boulevard
Newark, CA 94560

Marleen Nyst

In my research I study the spatial and temporal distribution of tectonic plate motion on regional scales and the underlying processes by developing simple models.

I try to understand motion represented by different types of data, like earthquake recordings, GPS surface motion observations and geological measurements of fault slip, in terms of the interaction of regional faults, plate boundaries and crustal blocks. To obtain some understanding of the processes underlying the accommodation of continental deformation on relatively short time-scales space geodesy proves to be of particular importance, because it provides large quantities of observations that densely sample deformation both in space and time. The areas, that I have focused my attention on, are the San Francisco Bay region and the Aegean region in the Mediterranean.

In my most recent work with the USGS I have used historical geodetic measurements (some of which were obtained more than 100 years ago) of the devastating 1923 Kanto Earthquake in the Tokyo Bay area to reconstruct the geometry of the planes that ruptured during that event, the magnitude of its slip, and the regional coseismic stress changes. This work is part of a project between USGS and Japanese scientists to assess the earthquake probability in the Tokyo Bay area and is funded by Swiss Re.

Now I work as an earthquake modeler for Risk Management Solutions, Inc. in Newark, CA