Julie Elliott

@julieelliott

Research Faculty at Michigan State University. Geodesy, Tectonics, and Glaciers. All opinions my own.

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Julie Elliott@julieelliott· 7d

I just got a packet of pictures and thank you cards from the classes I talked to. Best thing ever (and just what I needed to get through the last AGU submission push)! They're all going on my office wall.

Drawing of a tall brown mountain with orange lava pouring down the sides and spitting out of the top.

Picture with green and blue background that resembles a globe. There is a "Thank You Miss Julie Elliott!" written on top. On the right side, there is an erupting volcano, a globe, and a coastline.

A picture of gray ground undergoing an earthquake. Looks like it may be a normal fault. A house on one side is shaking and has cracks. A tree on the other side is shaking and looks like it about to be uprooted.

A picture of four(!) volcanoes, all with lava down the sides and lava shooting out of the tops. There is a lot of ash in the air around and above the volcanoes.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· 8d

A few views of Liberty Creek Schist from an area where I've done a lot of fieldwork. Gorgeous green rocks that have been put through a lot along the southern Alaska margin.

Green rocks of various shades. In the middle, the rock has foliation with white quartz mixed with the green. To the left, a light green rock with darker green patches.

A rock with bands of light and dark green and some patches of white. A white vein of quartz runs up one side.

A green rock with narrow criss-crossing bands of white quartz. Also some dirt as I haven't washed my rocks.

A rock with fine green and white layers. A thicker, wavy white band runs through the middle of the rock.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· 21d

The MSU geodesy interns presented their research at MidSURE (Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research) today. They did a great job explaining geodesy, GNSS, complex deformation patterns, and tectonics to a wide variety of people. ⚒️

Student standing in front of a poster titled: "Investigating a Volcano at a Transform Fault: Understanding the relationship between tectonics and Mt. Edgecumbe in SE Alaska with GNSS data".

Student standing in front of a poster titled "A novel model for deformation in south-central Alaska".

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· 26d

Well this nicely justifies all the money I spent on air purifiers yesterday. jasminedevv.github.io/AQI2cigarett...

Photo of web interface titled "AQI to Cigarette Calculator". AQI stands for air quality index. In the boxes below, AQI is listed as 360 (current value for where I am in Michigan), Hours exposed is 24, and the calculated number of equivalent cigarettes smoked in 18. Yuck.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· 27d

Blergh. Even with an air purifier running, the smoke smell is strong inside my office.

Map of midwest centered on the mitten of Michigan. There are colored dots with numbers representing the air quality index. Almost all of the dots are maroon and represent hazardous air conditions. The few that aren't are purple and represent very unhealthy air conditions. Really not much better.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jul 13

Two pieces of basalt from near the first place I climbed outside (rather than in a gym) in Washington state and a few chunks of pretty schist from a part of the Chugach Mountains in Alaska where I've done a lot of fieldwork.

Two pieces of basalt. The one on top is reddish from oxidation and fine grained. The bottom piece is darker and has many air bubbles or vesicles.

Three pieces of schist (I think - as a geophysicist, my rock id skills are not exactly amazing). The smallest piece is green with shiny foliation planes and some larger dark green crystals. Another piece has more folding and a mix of light green and dark. This rock also has some veins of white quartz running through it. The third rock is a much darker green-blue color. Foliation is present and there is one tiny quartz vein in the corner.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jul 9

On July 9, 1958, a M7.8 earthquake ruptured the Fairweather fault (a right-lateral transform fault) in southeast Alaska. The quake triggered a massive rockslide/landslide into the head of Lituya Bay (a fjord), which in turn generated the largest ever recorded tsunami (524 m/1720 ft!). ⚒️🧪🌊

A map of Lituya Bay, along the coast of southeast Alaska. The map shows the area of the landslide at the head of the fjord, elevation contours, and limits of the areas where the tsunami stripped away trees and other cover from bedrock (these areas extend all throughout the fjord). A red dashed line at the head of the fjord marks the location of the Fairweather fault, the right-lateral transform fault that slipped during the earthquake. The map is from Miller, 1960 (see comment for full citation) and was modified by me (I added the Fairweather fault location).

Sketch comparing the height of the Lituya Bay tsunami wave (524 m) to the height of the several buildings including the Burj Khalifa (828 m, tallest building in the world), Empire State (443 m), and Eiffel Tower (324 m). Credit: Phoenix CZE, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Aerial view of Lituya Bay after the earthquake and tsunami. The edges of the bay show light colored areas where trees and other vegetation have been stripped down to the bedrock. Photo Credit: USGS, Don Miller.

Aerial view of the head of Lituya Bay. The landslide scar is in the right corner. in the right middle is Lituya Glacier, the end of which was shattered by the landslide/rockfall. In the middle left, a slope with dark colored trees on top has been stripped down to bedrock up to a height of 524 m by the tsunami. Photo Credit: USGS, Don Miller. Plate published in USGS Professional Paper 354-C, 1960.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jun 15

Today this summer's interns got to experience the joy and frustration of setting up campaign GNSS sites. They've been busy learning Linux, GMT, and going to lectures on how GNSS works, coordinate systems, and time series, so leveling and centering was a (mostly) enjoyable change of pace. ⚒️🧪

Two people stand next to a yellow tripod with a white GNSS antenna on top. One person is hold a height stick against the edge of the antenna to measure the slant height to the center of the benchmark.

Three people stand around a yellow tripod with a white GNSS antenna on top. One person holds a height stick against the edge of the antenna while another reads the numbers off of the stick. A yellow Pelican case with cables and a GNSS receiver sits to the right of the tripod.

Three people stand around a yellow tripod with a optical plummet on top. One person is leaning over to look into the sight of the optical plummet to determine if the equipment is centered over the benchmark center. A yellow Pelican case with cables and a GNSS receiver is sitting to the right of the tripod.

Super fancy demo benchmarks made up of circles cut out of brown cardboard with a large nails attached to the back. The benchmarks are based on real benchmarks I've surveyed. One says "TSINA East Base 1941" in the center (above and below a triangle with a dot in the middle) with "US Coast & Geodetic Survey Triangulation Sta." around the edge. The other has a circle with a cross in the center. Above the circle, 3444D is written with 1979 below. Around the edge, "National Ocean Survey Benchmark is written".

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jun 14

I just found a box of CDs with photos from 2004. Here are pics from a trip up to Wiseman, Alaska. My brother had come to visit me in Fairbanks and we planned a flightseeing tour into the Brooks Range, but the wildfire smoke grounded the flights. We went north up the Dalton Highway instead.

A bridge with multiple concrete and steel piers spans the wide Yukon river. A heavy haze of wildfire smoke obscures the far end of the bridge. All you can see of the far shore is a fuzzy outline of some hills.

Three adorable sled dog puppies look up towards the camera. All three are dark brown/black and have lighter dots above their eyes. Two of the dogs have dark muzzles with ears that flop over. The third (my favorite) has a light muzzle and very large triangular ears that stick straight up. They were part of a mushing kennel we visited.

A log cabin is decorated with several skulls/antlers of moose along the front. There are wildflowers in the front yard. There are solar panels on the roof. Tall spruce trees sit in the background.

An old log cabin has a sign "US Post Office, Wiseman Alaska, Opened 1909 Closed 1956". The cabin is surrounded by spruce trees and deciduous trees, some of which are starting to change into yellow and orange colors. The picture is a bit hazy due to wildfire smoke.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jun 1

Numbered ducks have appeared in the department (in places that probably violate some safety codes). I'm trying to convince myself that setting up data processing runs is much more interesting than figuring out if Ducks #1-7 exist.

A small blue duck with a orange bill and a white circle with a blue "0" on its belly sits in the basin of an emergency eye wash station.

A small blue duck with an orange beak and a white circle with a blue "8" on its belly sits on top of a power box for two emergency spot lights in the hallway of a building.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Apr 1

This region is a tectonic puzzle. Based on the land-based GNSS sites, there is no evidence of locking on the megathrust here (so low EQ potential). But partial locking can be present near the trench without misfitting the GNSS data. New seafloor geodetic data will hopefully help solve the puzzle. ⚒️🧪

Map of the Alaska subduction zone with topography and bathymetry in grayscale. White arrows show motion at GNSS sites relative to a model of North America motion. Orange outlines show areas of historic earthquake ruptures. White and blue boxes show estimates of locking/coupling on the megathrust derived from the GNSS data. In the area of the 1964 M9.2 earthquake, the white GNSS data arrows are large and moving inland, indicating that that area of the megathrust is largely locked and generating strain at the surface. In the region of the 1946 M8.6 earthquake, the only GNSS sites are quite a bit inland from the trench and the motion is parallel to the trench, indicating that upper plate motion is all that is being recorded in the GNSS data. The GNSS data do not require any strain from locking on the megathrust. The locking/coupling box in the area of the 1946 rupture is white, indicating fully creeping megathrust. Usually, we think that creeping megathrust segments would not generate large earthquakes while more highly locked segments (like 1964) would.

An alternate locking/coupling model for the Alaska subduction zone. Boxes in rainbow colors indicating the amount of locking/coupling. In the region of the 1946 earthquake, the region of the megathrust closer to the land (and the GNSS sites) is not locked. But there is a narrow band of partial locking (around 30% locking) near the trench. Because this band of partial locking is far away from the GNSS sites, it doesn't cause misfit to the data. So there could be some limited locking near the trench in this region that could explain the 1946 earthquake and tsunami. Modified from Elliott et al. 2024.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Mar 23

Temps have hovered around freezing all day here and it has been snowing intermittently. The flower shop near campus is attempting to put a more cheerful spin on the situation (not sure if it is enough).

A large house with a brick lower level, a white siding upper level, and dark shutters sits on a corner and is surrounding by tall evergreen trees. There is a green business sign in front of the house that has "B/A Florist and Plant House" written in script. Below the business name are plastic tiles spelling out the message "SPRING IS HERE. IGNORE SNOW. BUY FLOWERS".

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Mar 21

It's the World Day for Glaciers, so here are a few views of one of my favorites, Hubbard Glacier. It is North America's longest tidewater glacier and is (currently) in less dire straits than its neighbors in southeast Alaska due to its large and high accumulation area in the St. Elias Mtns. ⚒️

Close up view of the terminus of Hubbard. A jagged cliff of light blue ice fills the middle of the scene. Darker (dirtier) ice is visible on the top of the glacier. Iceberg filled water takes up most of the lower half if the image.

A panorama of the entire terminus of Hubbard Glacier. A jagged cliff of bluish ice stretches from on edge of the picture to another. The surface of the glacier on the left hand side is dark due to moraine debris. The edge of a small island is visible in the foreground. A number of icebergs (mostly blue, but one black from debris) have accumulated along the shore. Ice filled water sits between the island the glacier terminus. Cloud shrouded mountains sit in the background.

Aerial view of a bay (Yakutat below, Disenchantment above) with a large glacier at its head (Hubbard). Hubbard's ice is curving around some mountains before ending in the bay. Another glacier (Valerie) joins Hubbard from the left, with a dark moraine separating the two. Snow covered mountains sit behind and to either side of the glaciers.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Feb 27

Going through old field photos and found these from a trip to survey a benchmark near the Malaspina Glacier. When we landed on the beach, we discovered that an unwelcome field assistant had recently come through. The pilot kept watch while I set up the site. #FieldworkFriday #FieldPhotoFriday ⚒️🧪

View from a small fixed-wing plane. A gray-blue strip of the North Pacific ocean fills the bottom edge of the scene. A narrow strip of beach is cut in half by a river emptying into the ocean. Tree-covered moraine rises behind the beach. A lake sits behind the moraine on the left of the image with the edge of the Malaspina Glacier (with alternating bands of dark moraine and white ice) is visible just behind the lake. The front of the St. Elias Mountains sits in the distance. Most of the scene is cloudy, but sun is shining down on the snow and ice of the mountains.

A beach, with grass and trees on the left and mist-covered surf on the right, fills the lower half of the image. The beach is a mix of rocks and sand with some driftwood. A line of tracks stretches long the beach. In the background, the snow and ice covered St. Elias Mountains rise.

A beach with gray sand and rocks. Very fresh bear tracks, with foot pads and claws quite visible, runs down the middle of the dry sand. To the right of the fresh tracks there are additional tracks that are partially worn away. This appears to be a popular bear route.

A yellow survey tripod holds a white GNSS antenna. A large yellow Pelican case at the bottom holds a GNSS receiver. A white garbage bag next to the Pelican case holds a battery to power the station. Vegetation, some of which was prickly, surrounds the tripod. Trees fill the background behind the site.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Feb 25

Just made this graphic for a talk. Why, yes, I am tired. Why do you ask? ⚒️

Text head says Geology vs. Geodesy. Below there are two pictures. One is a GNSS site with eyeballs and angry looking eyebrows pointing towards each other. The other is a hillside showing geologic strata, a fault, and some folds. Eyeballs are placed at the ends of the folds with angry eyebrows. A frown mirrors the geologic strata. The ultimate showdown is on.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jan 24

Woohoo! We're the same as Fairbanks right now! I knew lugging my Alaska winter gear through multiple moves would eventually pay off.

Screenshot of weather app showing East Lansing, -12F, Sunny, H:7F, L:-17F

Screenshot of weather app showing Fairbanks, -12F, Partly Cloudy, H: 3F, L: -14F

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Jan 1

The New Year started with two more M5+ aftershocks to the Dec. 6 M7 earthquake in the southwest Yukon. With strike-slip dominating in the south and thrust events around Mt. Logan, there are likely multiple faults involved. Fascinating sequence. I just wish there were more GNSS sites in that area. ⚒️

Map of southeast Alaska and the southwest Yukon. Gray shades show the topography. Blue triangles and circles mark locations of seismic and GNSS stations, respectively. Red lines are model representations of active faults in the region. The red dashed line is the proposed Fairweather-Totschunda connector fault (under ice, not directly observable). Light blue dots are locations of aftershocks of the Dec. 6 2025 M7 earthquake. The aftershocks line up with the proposed connector fault location around the mainshock, but start veering to the northwest towards Mt. Logan as you move north. Note: aftershock locations are taken directly from USGS website and are not relocated. Locations are probably more scattered than they really are due to that. Available focal mechanisms show mostly strike slip in the southern half of the sequence and thrust around Mt. Logan. Focal mechanisms are from USGS.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Dec 29

Wrangell-St. Elias by an extremely large margin. My other top favorites are Katmai, Gates of the Arctic, North Cascades, Olympic, and Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

A snow covered shield volcano (Mt. Wrangell) sits behind a lake whose shores are lined with trees.

A glacier with two darker moraine stripes ends in a bay which is filled with ice bergs. Brownish gray hills flanks both sides of the glacier. On the right, a large glacier covered mountain rises. A small peninsula with shear cliffs and dark green trees on top extends from the left in the foreground.

A large glacier with moraines running down its center and along its sides flows down the center and stretches back into the distance.Several smaller tributary glaciers join the main trunk from side valleys. Ice covered peak sit in the distance. Green ridges rise on either side of the glacier.

Gray blue clouds and icefield fill the foreground. A triangular shaped rugged ice covered mountain rises in the background and is covered in alpenglow. A pink, yellow, and blue sky fills the space over the mountain.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Dec 22

Into subduction zones? There's an upcoming SZ4D International Webinar about shallow megathrust behavior on January 22. You can register for the zoom meeting below. ⚒️🧪 ucsc.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

A photo of a person wearing glasses and a baseball hat standing in front of a snowy landscape. To the right of the photo, text says SZ4D presents International Webinar Series with Dr. Tianhaozhe Sun, January 22, 17:00 UTC, Shallow Megathrust in Subduction Earthquake Cycles.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Dec 16

I deeply relate to this new EarthScope sticker. I deal with brown bears instead of polar bears, but the behavior is the same. Intelligent, curious creatures who are sometimes complete jerks around GNSS stations. ⚒️🧪

Sticker showing white fluffy bear sitting in snow while it chews on the corner of a solar panel array. A GNSS antenna with radome is mounted on a pole behind the solar panel. Behind the bear is a large red enclosure. It this was a real GNSS site, the enclosure would house the GNSS receiver, other electronics, and batteries.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Dec 15

At #AGU25 and want to talk about #geodesy education and growing the geodesy workforce? Come check out this poster session this afternoon. I'll be there with a poster (G13B-0268) on MSU's undergraduate summer geodesy internship program. ⚒️🧪

Conference schedule entry with title G13B - 21st Century Geodesy: Growing the Field by Highlighting Contributions and Careers in the Service of Society I Poster and session info Monday, 15 December 2025, 14:15 - 17:45, Hall EFG (Poster Hall) (NOLA CC). Session description: Geodesy underpins modern geospatial science and technology, enabling numerous applications ranging from Earth and space exploration, to climate change resilience, to navigation and communications, to global security. Geodesy can be leveraged for near-future applications involving autonomous vehicles, digital twins, and other technologies that super-charge the economy and better ensure safety of life and property. However, attracting and training a robust and skilled workforce in this field presents ongoing challenges. This session seeks abstracts that demonstrate the role that geodesy plays within current and future commercial, academic, non-profit, and government applications that drive economic vitality, safety, and other societal benefits. We also seek creative ideas on rebranding geodesy around these contributions and career paths to enhance the perception of the field by students and those in positions to effect policy and funding decisions. Submissions exploring geodesy skills required by various sectors and how academic institutions can address these are also encouraged.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Nov 20

Cool study that uses acoustic signals recorded at seismic sensors to identify aircraft type flying overhead (different aircraft have different frequency signatures). Alaska provides a lot of aircraft variety to evaluate. ⚒️🧪🚁 pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/tsr/arti...

a. Seismogram from one of the seismic sensors (largest signal is an earthquake). b. Residual spectrogram (difference between the spectrogram and the amplitude spectrum (red line at left). Curves overlain with dashed lines are the aircraft signal. The broad/smeared signal at lower frequencies is from an earthquake. c. Aircraft that made the signal, a Cessna 185. d. Flight pattern for the aircraft (blue) and locations of seismic sensors (red). Cross section of the residual spectrum along dashed line in b, large signal near beginning is from an earthquake.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Nov 5

#30DayMapChallenge Day 4: My Data Hardware stores I have visited/spent too much money in while doing fieldwork in southern and interior Alaska. Maybe one day I'll make it through a trip without needing to stop at a hardware store (but probably not).

Topography (and bathymetry) map of southern and interior Alaska along with a bit of the Gulf of Alaska. Turquoise wrenches mark locations of hardware stores scattered throughout the region. Two are off of the road system, so all products have to be brought in via plane or boat. Visits to those stores were particularly expensive.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Nov 2

#30DayMapChallenge Day 2: Lines Think your commute is rough? Here are migration paths of Arctic terns that breed in Alaska. Each color represents the round trip track for an individual tagged bird. Migration data source in comment. Map made with the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT).

Map of the world centered on the western Pacific. Continents/islands are gray while water is pale blue. Various shades of blue and green lines stretch from Alaska, eastern Russia, and the Bering Sea down the western Pacific margin to Antarctica. The lines are very much not straight, but weave around and sometimes double back.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Oct 24

Today is International GNSS Day. October 23 was chosen because 10.23 MHz is the foundational frequency for GPS. The world has become dependent on GNSS, but there are threats to service continuity. It is good to take a day to appreciate the value of GNSS. #geodesy www.ion.org/news/interna...

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Oct 4

For #FieldworkFriday, some of the benchmarks I've surveyed over the past few weeks. Some are more challenging to use than others, but they're all interesting. #geodesy ⚒️🧪

Brass disk with a circle in the center. Inside the circle is a line with a punchmark/divot in the center. In concentric circles around the center circle are inscriptions: "4240T 2000 For Info Contact Director Washington DC National Ocean Service Bench Mark".

Brass disk recessed into paving. A layer of mud and moss had to be removed to find it. There is a circle in the center of the disk with two lines dividing the circle into quarters. Around the outer edge of the benchmark are the words "Z22A 1994 National Ocean Service".

A brass disk sites in rock. In the middle of the disk is a triangle with a center divot. At the top of the Triangle, it says TSINA EASTBASE. At the bottom, it gives the year as 1941. Around the edge of the benchmark are the words U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey Triangulation Station.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Oct 2

A campaign GNSS site in Willow, Alaska, set up to tie previous time series with the new EarthScope/NOTA continuous GNSS site nearby (the old NOTA site got whacked by a snow plow). The white crags in the center background are Mt. Foraker (left), Mt. Hunter (middle right), and Denali (far right). ⚒️🧪

A yellow tripod is set up over a recessed benchmark (that had to be dug out of mud and moss). A white GNSS antenna sites on the tripod. A yellow case sites next to the tripod and holds a GNSS receiver. A battery sits next to the case and is connected to the receiver. Orange cones with reflective strips stand at each tripod leg because the site is at an airport and needs to be visible. A gravel and concrete air strip edged with trees stretches into the background. In the far center background, three large snow covered peaks show above the horizon. the sky is blue with only a few puffy clouds.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Oct 1

Engaged in a bit of gardening this morning. In related news, I'm pretty sure I know why data from this GNSS site has been showing high levels of noise. Also, I hate cottonwood, alder, and their ilk. ⚒️🧪

A stainless steel GNSS antenna monument with three angled legs and one vertical center leg stands in the middle of the photo. A gray radome (with a GNSS antenna inside) is at the top of the monument. Nasty, nasty alder, cottonwood, and other plants have grown very tall around the monument, intertwining their evil branches with the monument legs and interfering with GNSS satellite signals reaching the antenna properly.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Oct 1

It might seem odd to set up a campaign GNSS site next to a continuous GNSS station, but running both at the same time allows the continuous time series to be tied to the longer campaign times series. Long time series rule! ⚒️🧪

A grassy field is edged with orange and gold trees with a blue sky overhead. Mountains peak out of clouds behind the trees. On the left side of a field, a welded GNSS antenna monument with a gray radome (with antenna inside) stands near a solar panel array with two gray boxes holding electronics and batteries. On the right side of the field, a yellow tripod set up over a campaign benchmark holds up a white GNSS antenna. A yellow box with a receiver and a battery sits near the base of one of the tripod legs.

Julie Elliott@julieelliott· Sep 26

Some last photos from a GNSS field campaign done a couple of weeks ago before I head up to Alaska again for one more survey before snow sets in. There is bedrock under the benchmark - it was a very good moss season this summer. This site is near Thompson Pass in the Chugach. #FieldworkFriday 🧪⚒️