Emily K. (Desmarais) Montgomery-Brown's
Research Homepage

Contact Information:

Department of Geoscience
1215 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53706
emilymb1 at gmail dot com
Curriculum Vitae
2010 AGU Poster
UW Geoscience
UW Geophysics
Stanford Geophysics
Crustal Deformation and Fault Mechanics
Episodic Tremor and Slip Bibliography (hosted on Zotero)

Current Research:
Integrating geodesy and seismology toward understanding volcano dynamics.
  • We are currently trying to correlate changes in the seismic properties of the rock on Kilauea Volcano, with the deformation changes resulting from an upper east rift zone intrusion that occurred in February, 2000.

Volcano Deformation:

I study motion of volcanoes using geodetic data including GPS instruments, tiltmeters, and InSAR data. In particular, my research has focussed on Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii.
  • The June 2007 intrusion of Kilauea was monitored in unprecedented detail by the continuous GPS network on Kilauea, as well as tiltmeters, and the ALOS and EnviSat radar satellites.

Volcanic Transients:

We studied a variety of volcanic transient signals (i.e. temporally varying deformation) at Kilauea Volcano.
  • Post-1997 east rift zone intrusion transient following the 1997 intrusion at Napau Crater on Kilauea volcano (See Desmarais and Segall (2006)) using the Kalman Filter based Extended Network Inversion Filter (ENIF) (McGuire and Segall, Geophys. J. Int., 2003) to incorporate data as well as a priori information about the initial state of a system and the shape of the model. The ENIF is also capable of making forward predictions, which we hope may help in predicting eruptions.
  • Slow earthquakes have occurred on on Kilauea volcano during which the south flank moved 6cm seaward without appreciable seismic shaking. The ~10 observed events have equivalent moment release similar to earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from M5-M6, and lasted roughly 36 hours.

Recent Publications:

(Full Publication List)
2010 Montgomery-Brown, E.K., C.H. Thurber, E.M. Syracuse, C.J. Wolfe, P. Okubo, M.P. Poland, A Miklius (2010), Repeating earthquakes and prospecting for temporal change in rock properties associated with geodetic deformation at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii , Abstract S13B-1990 presented at 2010 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 13-17 Dec.
2011 - Montgomery-Brown, E. K., D. K. Sinnett, K. M. Larson, M. P. Poland, P. Segall, and A. Miklius (2011), Spatiotemporal evolution of dike opening and decollement slip at K.lauea Volcano, Hawai'i, J. Geophys. Res., 116, B03401, doi:10.1029/2010JB007762. ( access password available, if needed)
2010 - Montgomery-Brown, E.K., D. Sinnett, M. Poland, T. Orr, P. Segall, H. Zebker, A. Miklius. Geodetic evidence for en echelon dike emplacement and concurrent slow-slip during the June 2007 intrusion and eruption at Kilauea volcano, Hawai'i. Vol. 115, B07405, 15 PP., 2010 doi:10.1029/2009JB006658 ( access password available, if needed)
2009 - Montgomery-Brown, E. K., P. Segall, and A. Miklius. Kilauea slow slip events: Identification, source inversions, and relation to seismicity, J. Geophys. Res., 114, B00A03, doi:10.1029/2008JB006074. ( access password available, if needed) (Table of slow slip events)
2009 - Montgomery-Brown, E.K. , D. Sinnett, M. Poland, T. Orr, P. Segall, H. Zebker, A. Miklius. Geodetic evidence for en echelon dike emplacement and concurrent slow slip at Kilauea volcano, Hawaii, June 17-19, 2007. USGS Earthquake Hazards Team Seminar, Menlo Park, CA, July 15, 2009. (Click Here for Video and Slides, July 15 )
2006 - Desmarais , E.K. and P. Segall. Transient deformation following the 30 January 1997 dike intrusion at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. Bulletin of Volcanology. DOI:10.1007/s00445-006-0080-7.(Bull. Volc.)
2006 - P. Segall, E. Desmarais , D. Shelly, A. Miklius, P. Cervelli. Earthquakes triggered by silent slip events on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. Nature Vol. 442, DOI:10.1038/nature04938 ()()
2006 - Seismicity triggered by slow earthquakes on Kilauea volcano, Hawaii E. Desmarais, P. Segall, A. Miklius, P. Okubo USGS Volcano Hazards Team Seminar, Menlo Park, CA, April 11, 2006. (Click here for Video, April 11 )
2005 - Desmarais , E. and P. Segall. Transient deformation on the south flank of Kilauea Volcano, EOS Trans. AGU, 86(47), Fall Meet. Suppl. Abstract G512-0052. **Winner Geodesy Section Outstanding Student Paper Award (Abstract)
Updated May 19, 2010