Professor Toke's Geoscience Blog

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. 

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:

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 ...

Whirlwind of a tour of New Zealand in bullet points: *Wonderful pre conference (ICG) field trip from Wellington to Kaikoura and then on to Christchurch: observing uplifted coastal platforms, fault scarps, landslides and discussing sediment cascades through the fluvial network from the thousands of mass wasting events associated with the 2016 Kaikoura EQ.  *great talks at the International Conference on Geomorphology. It was refreshing to experience a non-north American centric conference. So much learning about glacial, peri/para glacial, aeolian, pluvial and other geomorphic study sites around the world. Day 2 was obviously a highlight for me with all day in back to back tectonic geomorphology sessions and presenting my work extending Parker and Veronica’s Ksn of Utah study. I also found myself stuck in a number of planetary geomorphology sessions. fascinating!  *visited the Earthquake City museum in Christchurch and also toured the red zone neighborhoods by bicycle which wer...

I’m writing from the South Island of New Zealand. Spent a few days in Auckland, climbed several cinder cones and swam in the comfortable 70 degree waters. Flew to Wellington, spent an evening there, hiked an escarpment above the Wellington fault and then completed a draft of a manuscript about lidar differencing and ground subsidence in Southern Utah for the Journal Remote Sensing before embarking for the pre conference field trip that I’m on now. The field trip began with a ferry ride on the Cook Straight, great weather today, but I cannot imagine how windy it must get in stormy conditions! Then we spent the day driving across the many valleys and ranges associated with the oblique slip faults in the northern half of the South Island, ending the day near the 2016 Kaikoura ruptures. Looking forward to tomorrow’s second half of the field trip and arriving in Christchurch for the conference! 

Week 3 of Spring 2026 was busy. I attended the first GE committee meeting of the semester where we discussed how to mitigate AI from impacting the GE experience at UVU, even considering how to effectively ban faculty and student from using AI in GE courses (or limiting it to no more than 10% of class structure/content). Seems like a good, but possibly controversial plan given the emails that all administrators here at UVU have been sending for the past 1.5 years.  I got reviews back on the Thousand Lake Fault Geosphere Manuscript and they were positive with some helpful suggestions for clarifying and and precision of language in a few places and adding in some things (e.g., fault scarp profile interpretations) to an e-supplement. Made some initial progress addressing those things and some of my colleagues will handle other aspects, will finish up those minor revisions in mid February upon return from New Zealand.  The figures above are views of subsidence across the Enoch Grab...