ScienceMaster - USGS Geologist Richard J. Pike


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RESEARCH GEOLOGIST - U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Richard J. Pike, Ph.D.

MEET DR. RICHARD J. PIKE
Geologist Dick Pike works with GIS specialists to understand the California Bay Region's slope-failure hazard through statistical relations among geology, topography, and landslides. He has contributed to such Team products as the 1997 El Niño Landslide Folio and the 1998 GSAToday article, and currently is supervising the compilation of a digital 10-county landslide database. Dick consults on all aspects of surface-form quantification and visualization, including DEM (digital elevation model) quality and shaded-relief mapping. He maintains a unique bibliography, now at 4300 entries, on terrain modeling. Earlier in his USGS career, Dick used spacecraft-image data to measure the Moon's surface roughness and study impact craters on the terrestrial planets.

A CLOSER LOOK
Richard Pike, an internationally known authority on terrestrial ground-surface form as well as the morphometry of impact craters on the Moon and planets, is a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Geological Survey. Currently, as member of the Survey's San Francisco Bay Area Earth Surface Processes Team, he cooperates in assessing the regional landslide hazard in northern California using digital elevation models (DEM’s) and other map data.

Hired by USGS initially to perform quantitative terrain-analysis of the Moon's surface in support of the Apollo Program, Dr. Pike has since drawn upon a diverse background in geology (B.S., Tufts College, 1959), geography (M.A., Clark Univ., 1963), and planetary science (Ph.D., Univ. Michigan, 1968) to address a number of disparate problems. These include the origin of lunar and planetary craters, roughness of the Martian surface, application of multivariate analysis to geomorphology, land-surface types of Southern New England and Italy, geometric signatures of landslide-prone topography, liquefaction-susceptibility mapping in coastal California, developing the systematic science of terrain modeling, shaded-relief mapping of large areas, and slope-failure in 1997-98 El Niño storms.

Dr. Pike has been Project Chief and Principal or Co-Investigator on a number of USGS efforts. He is the author/co-author of a hundred published papers and has consulted to the U.S. Army and NASA as well as taking part in the usual activities of a senior scientist. His favorite professional achievements are the Apollo Medallion (a NASA award), USGS's all-time best-selling map product—the large-format shaded-relief map of the United States, a recent book on terrain modeling, and correct prediction of the overall size and shape of the impact crater that extinguished the dinosaurs. Dr. Pike has taught summer courses in Italy and was included in three editions (24-26) of Marquis Who's Who in the West and in editions 1 and 2 of Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering.

Learn About Dr. Pike

View Some Recent Work

THE USGS SAN FRANCISCO BAY REGION PROJECT
The USGS San Francisco Bay Region Project is part of the Western Earth Surface Processes Team and is located in Menlo Park, California.

Project members specialize in geologic mapping, landslide hazards analysis, geophysics, terrain modeling and analysis, paleontology, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Through an understanding of the complex geology of the San Francisco Bay Region, the Project seeks to assess geologic hazards such as landslides, earthquakes and soil liquefaction.

Learn About Mapping of Topographic Land Forms

Learn About Terrain Modeling

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Above: Oblique view of the San Francisco Peninsula showing areas of ancient slides and earthflows in red, steep terrain with few landslides in gray, and flat land in yellow.

Created with ARC/INFO GIS from USGS 30-meter Digital Elevation Model and map of slides and earthflows in the Bay region.

ADVICE ON CAREERS
Make certain you are mathematically inclined before getting into science, which puts heavy demands on quantitative skills, and I don't mean just being able to use canned software on the computer! Science today is increasingly integrative, much less compartmentalized than it used to be. This requires flexibility and the knack for working well with other people. Science sometimes is a solitary, lonely pursuit, however, and highly gregarious people can find themselves out of place in it. Science also requires great patience, and persistence - the capacity to fail and then try again and again - not to mention the emotional toughness to walk away from a cherished idea that simply is not going to work out in the end. But most of all, you have to be curious, want to get to the bottom of things, ask questions that ordinarily would not occur to most folks. And … it helps to be smart to begin with. Science is hard work, and in some instances quite competitive. Also important on the way up is having at least one good mentor. I had two, perhaps three. I needed them!

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