The goals of the ICS are based on an increased understanding of the formation of and processes within the crust and lithosphere of the earth by utilizing the approaches of many disciplines and the expertise of scientists in academia, government and industry.

The current mission of the ICS is to provide the research leadership, organizational structure and facilities to promote the cooperation of scientists from various research groups and organizations to study processes that occur within the earth and in particular, the earth's crust. The research agenda of the ICS comprises the study of crustal structure, tectonics, earthquakes, crustal materials, and pollution/contamination from natural and man-made processes.

While ICS, like other ORU’s on campus, has a primary mission of research, it is obvious that education is an integrated element. As discussed in more detail later, both graduates and undergraduates have been and continue to be fully immersed in the research activities at ICS (Figure 2). There is almost a one-to-one ratio of principal investigators and students. The student contribution is noticeable in the number of presentations given at symposia and professional meetings including undergraduates who are co-authors on several of the reports, papers and abstracts of talks presented at national meetings. Gretchen Mullendore, an undergraduate who started doing independent research as a Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) intern at ICS in 1996 and continued through her graduation, was given the Charles Douglas Woodhouse Award as the outstanding graduating senior in the Department of Geological Sciences (DGS) who is most likely to succeed as a professional. Mullendore also received a Coast Geological Society Scholarship. David Oglesby, a PhD graduate student studying the rupture dynamics of dipping faults, received the Geological Sciences Wendell Phillips Woodring Memorial Graduate Fellowship as a "student who is working on a thesis proposal of highest merit and who is judged capable of seeing it to a distinguished and early conclusion. " Oglesby was also awarded the G. K. Gilbert Award for the graduate student in the DGS who has presented the best paper based on original research at a Departmental Journal Club talk. Many of the professional research staff serve as thesis committee members for the graduate students. They also teach or assist in the teaching of classes on campus. Dr. Craig Nicholson taught two upper division courses, Seismology and Reflection Seismology & Subsurface Imaging, The undergraduate Physical Geology course and honors section were taught by Dr. Wendy Bohrson, and Dr. Jeff Lee taught an upper division course in Environmental Geology. Nicholson was named adjunct professor in the DGS. Education is a two-way street at ICS with the students directly involved in research and the professional researchers directly involved in teaching.

During the past year ICS has been host to 26 visitors, seven of whom spent from a month to a year collaborating with researchers at ICS. Six of these seven individuals were from foreign countries with fresh perspectives on many of the problems being studied. Their presence enriched and enlivened the research environment at ICS as well as the campus. Dr. Igor Zektser, Water Problems Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, used a Fulbright Fellowship to collaborate with Dr. Lorne Everett to finalize the first world groundwater map–a 5-year project. Professor Raul Madariaga, Ecole Normale, working with Drs. Kim Olsen and Ralph Archuleta produced a dynamic simulation of the 1992 Landers M7. 3 earthquake. Dr. Paul Spudich, U. S. Geological Survey, together with Archuleta, Olsen and Eleanore Jewel, a new graduate student, laid the groundwork for a successful proposal on earthquake simulations in the San Francisco Bay area. In addition to the visitors, ICS has been home to postdoctoral fellows Stefan Nielsen (Naples) supported by Materials Research Laboratory and Peng-Cheng Liu (Beijing) supported by SCEC. While these visitors and postdoctoral fellows provide a direct link to new ideas, they also leave an intangible impression on the students who can see first hand that much of the research has an impact well beyond the confines of UCSB.

We do not have to travel the world though to make an impression. With ICS researchers studying, for example, the cause and effects of natural oil seeps off the Santa Barbara coast; the contamination and bioremediation of leaking underground fuel tanks; or the ever present threat of earthquakes, there is always an undercurrent of interest on a local, national and sometimes international level. For example, Archuleta was invited to present a talk on anticipating the next big earthquake in southern California at the International Symposium on Natural Disaster Prediction and Mitigation, in Kyoto, Japan. Everett was invited to attend the World Laboratory meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to identify groundwater monitoring and remediation strategies for countries in Eastern Europe, Russia and China. Olsen’s simulations of ground motion from large earthquakes in southern California were featured on the Discovery Channel. The Los Angeles Times highlighted the results of Olsen and Carmen Alex, an undergraduate, on a possible explanation for the anomalous damage in Santa Monica during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

In the past year, there have been significant changes in the administration of ICS. After 10 years of skillful stewardship, Prof. Bruce Luyendyk stepped down from the Director’s helm and passed it onto Archuleta as Acting Director. (Luyendyk became chair of the Department of Geological Sciences and still serves on the ICS Advisory Committee as well as being an active principal investigator in ICS. ) There is an active search for a Director of ICS; the professorship will reside in the DGS. The research emphasis for this position is in tectonic geodesy with a research interest in quantitative crustal deformation. Prof. Art Sylvester assumed the duties of Associate Director formerly held by Archuleta. Almost coincident with the change in Director was a critical change in the MSO. Kathy Murray filled the MSO vacancy created by the departure of Maureen Evans, now MSO of the Materials Research Laboratory. Fortunately, this transition period has been relatively smooth because both Murray and Archuleta have been long-time members of ICS and because of the support and encouragement by all of ICS.

ICS continues to operate with a minimal staff (2. 0 permanent FTE, 0. 5 casual FTE). This administrative staff supports 39 principal investigators and 40 students (graduate and undergraduate) on 62 research projects from 19 different agencies. The total award value administered has grown to over $7 M while the budgets for the core and special projects have remained nearly constant (Figure 3)

In May 1998, Kajima Engineering and Construction, Inc. , a California subsidiary of Kajima Corporation of Japan formally donated its Hollister Earthquake Observatory (HEO) to Archuleta and his ICS research group and to the University of California. This donation exceeds $1 M. The observatory consists of a vertical array of borehole 3-component accelerometers–depths 0, 10, 20, 50, 110 and 192 m (the deepest is in bedrock)–at a soil site in Salinas Valley and three accelerometers about three kilometers away–two being on surficial rock and another at 53 m depth. All of the accelerometers are recorded digitally; the data from the remote site is telemetered by a spread spectrum radio link to the main recording site co-located with the vertical array. The data can be transmitted to ICS via a telephone modem. Only three months after ICS took control of HEO the array recorded the most significant earthquake in its seven year history–a M _W 5. 1 earthquake on the San Andreas only 13 km from HEO. This array complements the Garner Valley Downhole Seismic Array (GVDSA) operated by the ICS borehole seismology group since 1988. The combination of HEO, GVDSA, the SCEC borehole initiative and the Campus Laboratory Collaborative (CLC) project (which installed two borehole accelerometers at UCSB near Webb Hall) puts ICS at the forefront of the quantification of the effects of near-surface geology.

With support from UNESCO, Dr. Zektser, a Russian visitor mentioned earlier, and Everett, Director of the ICS Vadose Zone Monitoring Laboratory completed the first world groundwater map. The map shows groundwater amounts, discharge areas and vulnerability. This map, which has taken five years to develop, is supported by one hydrogeologist from each country in the world. The map’s creation was spearheaded by Zektser; the final elements of the map were completed in the eight months that Zektser spent at the ICS Vadose Lab. The map is being published by UNESCO and is expected to be completed this coming year.

Drs. Gans and Bohrson recently published an article in Science documenting the interplay between volcanism and extension in the crust. They examined the details of the evolution of the Northern Eldorado Mountains in southern Nevada. What they found was voluminous volcanism preceding times of major extension (³ 100%) but suppression of volcanism during and following the episodes of major extension. Gans and Bohrson conjecture that effects of normal faulting could account for both suppression of volcanism and extension.

Simulations of earthquakes as fully dynamic ruptures are uncommon. Yet ICS researchers published two papers in Science on completely different dynamically simulated earthquakes. Olsen, Madariaga, and Archuleta simulated the dynamic rupture of the 1992 Landers earthquake. They found that the rupture front would break the regions of high stress with regions of low stress nearby filling in afterwards. The rupture velocity, the static slip and the slip rate are consistent with models based on inverting the strong motion data for the kinematic parameters of faulting. Oglesby, Archuleta and Nielsen clearly demonstrated that the ground motion is asymmetric in two important aspects for dip-slip faults, thrust and normal faults. First, the hanging wall of a fault moves much more than the footwall–an effect primarily due to the difference in mass. Second, the ground movement of the hanging wall of a thrust fault is much greater than that for a normal fault–all factors being equal except for the sign of the shear stress on the fault. This second result is particularly surprising but consistent with observations that thrust faults generate larger amplitude ground motions than normal faults. The results of Oglesby and others were the first dynamic simulations of earthquakes on faults with arbitrary dip.

What is the seismic hazard in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties? A simple question with a wide range of answers. Because Santa Barbara and Ventura are within a transpressional (combination of strike-slip and thrust faults) region, it is not straightforward to assess the seismic hazard without understanding how the large scale plate tectonic strain is partitioned. Drs. Nicholson, Kamerling, Pinter, Sorlien and Sylvester are attacking this problem using a variety of techniques: reanalysis of detailed 3D structure in the Ventura Basin, measurements of shoreline angles on the Channel Islands, unfolding of structure maps, and short-baseline leveling. Sorlien and Kamerling find that new, unmapped faults must exist in Ventura Basin for continuity of the Basin structure. Sylvester cogitates that aseismic folding, observed in the Ventura Avenue anticline, is clear evidence that not all strain is available for release in earthquakes, thereby making impending earthquakes smaller and/or less frequent.

In 1996/97 academic year, ICS scientists documented that natural hydrocarbon seeps off the coast of Santa Barbara are capable of producing ozone equivalent to the output of all the automobiles and trucks in the County. This stunning discovery has prompted a host of studies described below. Drs. Luyendyk, Alain Trial, Libe Washburn and Jordan Clark have combined efforts to measure the flux of hydrocarbons being released and their distribution in the Channel and to model these plumes as they dissipate in the ocean. Accurate measurements of the seeps and their contribution to air pollution are fundamentally important to realistic air quality goals in Santa Barbara county.

Nineteen graduate students are supported by research grants administered through ICS. They have presented their research with 14 talks or posters at professional meetings: e. g. , American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, Seismological Society of America, annual Southern California Earthquake Center. Nine students are co-authors on papers.

Molly Trecker received a Mildred E. Mathias Graduate Student Research Grant to collect shells on Santa Cruz Island for dating the marine terrace on the island.

Fabian Bonilla was supported by the French Commissariat Energie Atomique to spend a month at their research facilities in Fontenay aux Roses outside of Paris. He and his French collaborators Drs. Jean Christophe Gariel and Fabrice Cotton used data from GVDSA to compare different methods of estimating site effects.

As mentioned earlier Oglesby was the recipient of the Department of Geological Sciences G. K. Gilbert and Wendell Woodring Awards. Oglesby, along with Archuleta and Nielsen, was invited to present his results on the dynamics of dipping faults at the American Geophysical Union Meeting in Boston.

Eleanore Jewel was selected as one of four graduate students in the DGS to display her research poster in Webb Hall for the 1998/99 academic year. Jewel’s poster, co-authored by Olsen and Archuleta was "1979 Coyote Lake Earthquake: Comparison of Data and 3D Simulation Results. "

Antonio Garcia, with financial support from a USGS research grant, the University of Granada, the Geological Society of America and UCSB, worked with Prof. Jose Chacon of the University of Grenada to elucidate the Quaternary history and uplift of the eastern end of the Sierra Nevada, Spain.

SCEC sponsored summer internships for three undergraduates: Carmen Alex, Neil Morgan and Erik Ronald under the mentorship of Drs. Olsen, Archuleta and Edward Keller, respectively. Each produced reports and presented their results at the SCEC annual meeting as well as the AGU meeting in San Francisco. They also presented posters during a meeting with state legislators here at UCSB.

Erik Ronald’s report was titled "Emergent Shoreline Features in the Santa Barbara Fold Belt: Possible Evidence for Holocene Coseismic Uplift"

Carmen Alex’s research "Lens-Effect in Santa Monica?" was a numerical analysis of the effect of subsurface structure as a possible cause for the anomalously high amount of damage in Santa Monica. This result was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters 25, pp. 3441-3444, 1998 with C. M. Alex, K. B. Olsen as authors.

Neil Morgan did his research on "Effects of the Landers Earthquake on Groundwater in Southern California. " Morgan found that while there were no precursory effects in water wells, there were suspicious post-earthquake effects for wells in San Bernardino and near Palomar Mountain. Water in wells in San Bernardino showed an immediate rise in their level, but this effect decayed to normal about two weeks after the event. At Palomar Mountain the concentration of total dissolved solids increased markedly at the time of the earthquake but returned to normal in about two weeks.

Gretchen Mullendore, working with Archuleta and Bonilla co-authored a paper presented at the 12 ^th American Society of Civil Engineers Conference on Engineering Mechanics: " Van Norman Dam Complex: Highly Variable Large Amplitude Ground Motion Over Small Distances" Mullendore also presented her results to state legislators and to the DGS.

Eight undergraduates spent six weeks with Luyendyk on an NSF sponsored research cruise in the South Pacific. The students assisted in the collection of geophysical data on the Manihiki Plateau in order to learn more about its plate tectonic history.

The ICS web site (Understanding Earthquakes) has been used in two new books. "The Busy Educator's Guide to the World Wide Web" by Marjan Glavac published this year and "Cyberspace for Kids" written by The Mandel Kids: Aliza, Jeremy, Wendy and Corey to be released next year by Dennison/Instructional Fair. Only 350 sites are mentioned in "Cyberspace for Kids. "

Archuleta was a special guest in the television program UCSB in View extolling the virtues of ICS. Luyendyk was interviewed by KEYT news on Mar. 18 ^th about the news story of revised earthquake probabilities for southern California. Olsen and Alex made news (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9, 1997) with their explanation of focusing seismic waves as the cause of severe, but locally concentrated, damage in Santa Monica and Sherman Oaks.

Bohrson gave a talk (July 24) on how volcanoes work to a group of gifted high school students from around the country who are here at UCSB attending a science camp run by Miriam Polne-Fuller at MSI.

Aaron Martin and Oglesby gave an earthquake talk at Santa Barbara Christian School. They talked to Ms. Beard's 5th grade class about plate tectonics and earthquakes, and also demonstrated a seismograph by letting the students create and record their own "earthquakes" by jumping up and down.

Jamie Steidl and Martin gave an earth science presentation to Peggy Lubchenco's seventh grade class (La Colina Junior High). Topics included sea-floor spreading, plate tectonics, plate boundaries and different types of faults, earthquake safety and some significant California earthquakes. Martin gave a brief presentation on modern data acquisition systems and their applications to the study of earthquakes. Steidl and Martin made a similar presentation to Julie Armstrong's fourth grade class at Isla Vista Elementary School.

Marc Kamerling made an hour and a half presentation to Mr. Ken Stone's Fifth Grade class at Peabody Charter School about the geology and geologic history of the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Cruz Island. The class was preparing to go to Santa Cruz Island as part of the "Los Marineros" program. This talk gave them an opportunity to appreciate what they were about to see.

Martin gave a short presentation to Prof. Jeffrey Lee's Environmental Geology class on the use of modern data acquisition systems for recording earthquakes especially in an urban (i. e. , noisy) environment.

Jeff Lee presented a talk on "Active Faults in the Owens Valley Region" to the Owens Valley Inter-Agency Committee (OVIAC), Bishop, CA. OVIAC is comprised of individuals from various local, state, and federal agencies (e. g. National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, etc. ) and private companies (primarily Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power). In attendance were: head of Caltrans for Owens Valley area, second in command for LADWP, head of Fish and Game, head of the National Forest Service, head of the BLM, head of the tourist board, head of the Red Cross disaster relief, head of the Lake Lahoutan Water District.

Archuleta presented a talk "Strong Ground Motion in the Near Source of Dipping Faults (or What Should We Expect from the Next Santa Barbara Earthquake?)" to UCSB Engineering. Dr. John C. Crowell, professor emeritus, presented a talk to the South Coast Geological Society: "The Glacial Record and the Causes of Climate Change"

Archuleta gave one of four general education talks during UCSB Parent’s weekend: "Earthquakes in Southern California. "

Five undergraduates (Alex, Marcy Davis, Morgan, Mullendore, Ronald) displayed posters and answered questions about their research (describe above) during a visit by State legislators.

Besides their contribution to the intellectual environment of the campus and their interface with the public, ICS researchers have been active members of their professions.