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July 2026 Updates: Parkfield 2.0 Workshop, Topliff and Cedar Hills Submissions, Thousand Lake Published, and Sabbatical Reading List

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The 2026 Summer is more than half over and it is hot here in Orem. The past two days (July 11-12) reached record high temperatures (All time, not daily) and looking at the weather map it was no joke. Afternoon temperatures were between 101 and 112 across the Wasatch Front and over 95 on the Wasatch Back, even in places like Park City! It's still not as hot as Phoenix was and cool enough for recreating pleasantly in the mornings, so I will be thankful for that!  Summer has been relaxed this year with very little travel for Debjani and me, but it has continued to be productive: In May, I led a week of our Geology Field capstone course right here along the northern Provo segment of the Wasatch fault zone. Students created a geomorphic/geologic strip map of the fault zone from Cedar Hills (in the North) to Battle Creek Trailhead on the southeast side of the town of Pleasant Grove. Some student maps were really quite impressive (see below - by Parker J.).  That week of work has led...
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End Spring 2026 - TLF copy edits, rehoming Subsidence paper, Draft of Topliff to colleagues

Well spring 2026 is over. So technical is sabbatical. But now it’s summer!  I’ve received news of success with the Geosphere manuscript and I am working on copy edits for that paper now. The journal Remote Sensing rejected my LiDAR differencing paper about ground subsidence in Cedar Valley despite two positive reviews and one negative one. So I reformatted and made a few small edits and submitted the Manuscript to Earth’s Future which is more about results and application than mythological focus which was the criticism by the one reviewer.  I also go through the very helpful edits by Dr Bunds and sent the Topliff Hills manuscript to the rest of our coauthors.  Got 10+ survey responses from Students that used my OER draft book. Will work to make edits before the start of fall.  Planning to submit a tectonic geomorphology paper with Parker and Veronica to a special issue stemming from the ICG meeting. Also contemplating how to move forward with the Genola north fault p...
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Penultimate Week spring 2026: editing Topliff and awaiting journal decisions

Dr Bunds gave me some really good feedback on the draft of our Topliff fault manuscript this past week and I am about half way through those edits. Hope to finish those this weekend or the beginning of next week so I can send a better version to the rest of our coauthors. I heard back (last week) from Geosphere’s editorial and contracts office that our TLF manuscript is headed toward publication! I applied for and received a SAC award to cover the publication charges. Now just waiting on official word and proofs from the editorial office. The 2nd round reviews appear to be back from the lidar differencing paper about subsidence in Cedar and Parowan Valleys is S. Utah. I could see feedback in the submission system which was positive from two reviewers and less so from a third. Hopefully the editorial group sides with the majority!  I completed a peer review for JGR Earth Surface last week. I chatted with K. Smith about working on the Genola North fault manuscript soon!  The Par...
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Week 12, Spring 2026: edited Southern Utah Subsidence Paper

This week, I responded to four reviewers’ comments on our Southern Utah Land Subsidence paper. Comments were substantial, but not too onerous. The paper is being looked over by David Munsey and I should be able to resubmit it by the start of next week! Then, I’ll get back to finalizing the Topliff paper or continue working on the central SAF paper. I also had an organizing meeting as we worked to post an announcement for the Parkfield 2.0 SCEC workshop that will take place this June in the Bay Area. 
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Week 10-11 Spring 2026 - Topliff Draft and Reviews back on Subsidence Paper

I completed a draft of the Topliff Hill fault zone paleoseismology paper and sent it off to my primary coauthor Dr Bunds for feedback today. It took about a month to write this paper. Along with other ongoing stuff. Feeling pretty good about it overall.  Yesterday I received feedback from four peer reviewers on the paper I wrote based upon work with David Munsey: LiDAR differencing to explore ground subsidence in southern Utah. The feedback was pretty critical. Seems like the reviewers really wanted it to be a methods paper, but it’s really a case study and explorative paper about what’s possible to see with LiDAR differencing with ground subsidence. I’ll see what I can do to appease them and if it doesn’t work out I’ll find a journal that’s more about geology than remote sensing methods. 
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Week 9 - Spring 2026: Topliff Hills Fault Zone Paper

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This week I used ScarpVS to analyze ~120 fault displacements across various geomorphic fan surfaces along the Topliff Hills Fault (and S Oquirrh Mtns FZ) which are just west of the Wasatch Front. Mike Bunds and I (along with 2019 Field Camp students) trenched this fault and have loose constrains on the ages of 4-6 earthquakes, so this work complements the trench study. I’ve already got 5 figures, 1 table and a few pages of writing done. Here is a summary of the displacement information along the fault:
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Week 8 - Manuscript Submissions and Teaching Demonstrations

This week I finalized and submitted a manuscript titled: "Imaging Subsidence Rates and Structures within Cedar and Parowan Valleys, Utah, USA from Lidar Differencing." with my coauthor David Munsey to the journal Remote Sensing (MDPI journal) AND I finished edits and resubmitted the Thousand Lake fault manuscript titled: "Variable Geologic Slip Rate and the Most Recent Earthquakes along the Thousand Lake Fault, Eastern Basin and Range, Utah, USA." by Nathan Toké, David Johnson, Christopher Bailey, David Marchetti, Tammy Rittenour, Robert Biek, Hanna Bartram, Sally Ward, Rachel Richards, and Clayton Forster. The revision is now under further consideration with Geosphere (GSA Journal).  It was a good week for writing as I was dealing with a fairly painful back strain which was so bad it was hard to walk and get up and down last weekend, but now is just keeping me from running and any quick pulling motions. Physical therapy for the issue is walking, so I walked to UVU ...
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