Surface rupture in the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake sequence occurred along two orthogonal cross faults and includes dominantly left-lateral and northeast-striking rupture in the Mw 6.4 foreshock and dominantly right-lateral and northwest-striking rupture in the Mw 7.1 mainshock. We present >650 field-based, surface-displacement observations for these ruptures and synthesize our results into cumulative along-strike displacement distributions. Using these data, we calculate displacement gradients and compare our results with historical strike-slip ruptures in the eastern California shear zone. For the Mw 6.4 rupture, we report 96 displacements measured along 18 km of northeast-striking rupture. Cumulative displacement curves for the rupture yield a mean left-lateral displacement of 0.3–0.5 m and maximum of 0.7–1.6 m. Net mean vertical displacement based on the difference of down-to-the-west (DTW) and down-to-the-east (DTE) displacement curves is close to zero (0.02 m DTW). The Mw 6.4 displacement distribution shows that the majority of displacement occurred southwest of the intersection with the Mw 7.1 rupture. The Mw 7.1 rupture is northwest-striking and 50 km long based on 576 field measurements. Displacement curves indicate a mean right-lateral displacement of 1.2–1.7 m and a maximum of 4.3–7.0 m. Net vertical displacement in the rupture averages 0.3 m DTW. The Mw 7.1 displacement distributions demonstrate that maximum displacement occurred along a 12-km-long portion of the fault near the Mw 7.1 epicenter, releasing 66% of the geologically based seismic moment along 24% of the total rupture length. Using our displacement distributions, we calculate kilometer-scale displacement gradients for the Mw 7.1 rupture. The steepest gradients (∼1–3  m/km) flank the 12-km-long region of maximum displacement. In contrast, gradients for the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers and 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine earthquakes are <0.6  m/km. Our displacement distributions are important for understanding the influence of cross-fault rupture on Mw 6.4 and 7.1 rupture length and displacement and will facilitate comparisons with distributions generated remotely and at broader scales.

Frogs and toads (Amphibia: Anura) display diverse ecologies and behaviours, which are often correlated with visual capacity in other vertebrates. Additionally, anurans exhibit a broad range of relative eye sizes, which have not previously been linked to ecological factors in this group. We measured relative investment in eye size and corneal size for 220 species of anurans representing all 55 currently recognized families and tested whether they were correlated with six natural history traits hypothesized to be associated with the evolution of eye size. Anuran eye size was significantly correlated with habitat, with notable decreases in eye investment among fossorial, subfossorial and aquatic species. Relative eye size was also associated with mating habitat and activity pattern. Compared to other vertebrates, anurans have relatively large eyes for their body size, indicating that vision is probably of high importance. Our study reveals the role that ecology and behaviour may have played in the evolution of anuran visual systems and highlights the usefulness of museum specimens, and importance of broad taxonomic sampling, for interpreting macroecological patterns.

Water purification might be the most frequently invoked example of an economically valuable ecosystem service, yet the impacts of upstream land use on downstream municipal water treatment costs remain poorly understood. This is especially true in developing countries, where rates of deforestation are highest and cost-effective expansion of safe water supplies is needed the most. We present the first econometric study to estimate directly the effect of tropical forests on water treatment cost. We exploit a rich panel dataset from Malaysia, which enables us to control for a wide range of potentially confounding factors. We find significant, robust evidence that protecting both virgin and logged forests against conversion to nonforest land uses reduced water treatment costs, with protection of virgin forests reducing costs more. The marginal value of this water purification service varied greatly across treatment plants, thus implying that the service offered a stronger rationale for forest protection in some locations than others. On average, the service value was large relative to treatment plants' expenditures on priced inputs, but it was very small compared to producer surpluses for competing land uses. For various reasons, however, the latter comparison exaggerates the shortfall between the benefits and the costs of enhancing water purification by protecting forests. Moreover, forest protection decisions that appear to be economically unjustified when only water purification is considered might be justified when a broader range of services is taken into account.

The Mw 6.4 and Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence occurred on 4 and 5 July 2019 within the eastern California shear zone of southern California. Both events produced extensive surface faulting and ground deformation within Indian Wells Valley and Searles Valley. In the weeks following the earthquakes, more than six dozen scientists from government, academia, and the private sector carefully documented the surface faulting and ground-deformation features. As of December 2019, we have compiled a total of more than 6000 ground observations; approximately 1500 of these simply note the presence or absence of fault rupture or ground failure, but the remainder include detailed descriptions and other documentation, including tens of thousands of photographs. More than 1100 of these observations also include quantitative field measurements of displacement sense and magnitude. These field observations were supplemented by mapping of fault rupture and ground-deformation features directly in the field as well as by interpreting the location and extent of surface faulting and ground deformation from optical imagery and geodetic image products. We identified greater than 68 km of fault rupture produced by both earthquakes as well as numerous sites of ground deformation resulting from liquefaction or slope failure. These observations comprise a dataset that is fundamental to understanding the processes that controlled this earthquake sequence and for improving earthquake hazard estimates in the region. This article documents the types of data collected during postearthquake field investigations, the compilation effort, and the digital data products resulting from these efforts.