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Geology News
California Current Events

The 2007 Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities has released the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast - the first comprehensive framework for comparing earthquake likelihoods throughout all of California. It provides important new information for improving seismic safety engineering, revising building codes, setting insurance rates, and helping communities prepare for inevitable future earthquakes.

This article by Jane Wells and published on the CNBC website reveals her response to recent USGS reports of earthquake probability in California. She says that her earthquake insurance is: “the most expensive insurance I own.”

Article: Homeowners Insurance Does Not Cover Natural Hazards

Nestlé Waters North America, a subsidiary of the famous Swiss consumer foods company, Nestlé, plans to operate a 1 million-square-foot bottling facility in northern California. This facility would employ over 200 people and contribute $350,000 of taxes per year to local government. The local residents are strongly opposed.

Scientists have developed a new method of predicting earthquakes. Using this new model, they estimate that in the next 30 years, the chance of a magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquake occurring in California is over 99%. Which parts of California have the greatest risk of being affected?

The California Geological Survey continues to release more seismic hazard zonation maps for the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. The most recent are maps for Dublin and Livermore Quadrangles. These maps and many others can be viewed as .pdf files on their websites.

The-Vug.com has a few very nice photos of crystallized gold from this locality that were taken by Jeff Scovil.

University of California Davis researchers have new information from a 2.5 million-year sequence of sediment collected from the floor of the Ross Sea as part of Operation Deep Freeze over 40 years ago. They believe that it is one of the best paleomagnetic records from the Ross Sea.

Kevin Padian, professor of Integrative Biology and curator in the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California at Berkeley, and president of the National Center for Science Education, comments on improving evolution education.

Homeowners in La Quinta, California are preparing to sue the Coachella Valley Water District because the agency’s overuse of ground water caused subsidence that damaged their homes. The homeowners are supplied with water by CVWD.

Several minor to small earthquakes have occurred today in the Baja California, Mexico area. The largest was about magnitude 5.0. Up to intensity V shaking has been repored in the Mexicali area.

Solar power production has grown rapidly in California, recording a 17-fold increase in under a decade. CoolerPlanet.com has a Google Map that you can use to trace the geographic history of solar power development in California.

Earthquake producing faults in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, California are being mapped by low-level aircraft owned by Excel Airborne Geophysics of High River, Alberta, Canada. They are flying at about 1,000 feet while measuring local variations in the earth’s magnetic field. They hope that the data will reveal subsurface faults.

Zoom in on the San Andreas Fault with a Google Map by David Lynch and Bradley Cole.

USGS has a podcast that describes what USGS scientists discovered about the impact of wildfires on California wildlife. Learn how certain groups of animals were disproportionately impacted by the fires.

A new article on geysers with photos from Yellowstone, California, Chile, Iceland and New Zealand. Did you know that Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone has produced the tallest eruptions of any active geyser. Too bad it erupts very infrequently.

Communities in the Coachella Valley are seeing subsidence, sometimes over one inch per year. USGS and local agencies are blaming the subsidence on ground water production at rates greatly exceeding recharge.

Wildfires in California has left large areas exposed to a significant debris flow hazard. USGS has done an emergency assessment of debris-flow hazards in a number of basins that were burned by the Buckweed, Santiago, Canyon, Poomacha, Ranch, Harris, Witch, Rice, Ammo, Slide, Grass Valley and Cajon Fires.

The wildfires in California stripped vegetation from thousands of acres and now those lands are subject to erosion and landslides. Once of the treatments used to stabilize the soil is a hydromulch that is a blend of corn and water, along with indigenous weed, grass and flower seeds.

USGS has a website where they are making post-wildfire guidance and data available to the public. Information on post-wildfire landslide hazards, stream flow data, debris flow and flash flood warning systems, educational videos and more.

California has a long history of wildfire problems and water shortages. Those have motivated people to reduce the amount of vegetation near their homes and use plenty of water to be sure that the vegetation that remains is not dry enough to ignite easily. This article includes a nontechnical exploration of these issues.

Reports from all over the world say that glaciers are melting. However, researchers have discovered that the glaciers of Mount Shasta in northern California are advancing. More snow is thought to be the cause.

Scientists at the University of Delaware and University of California at Riverside are thawing million-year-old ice from Lake Vostok, an ancient lake that is two miles beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica. They hope to find and study ancient microorganisms.

A debris flow and flash flood warning system developed jointly by NOAA’s National Weather Service and the U.S. Geological Survey will help protect Southern Californians from potentially devastating debris flows-commonly known as mud slides- and flash floods in and around burn areas created by the recent wildfires.

The California Geological Survey has an area on their website where you can download a large number of geologic maps in .pdf format. There you can find 7.5 minute and 30×60 minute geologic maps, landslide maps, mineral production maps and more. A few other states are placing maps like these online and the USGS has an online National Geologic Map Database where you can do research and download some of the maps.

An interesting post about the Goleta submarine landslide in the Santa Barbara Basin of offshore California can be seen at clasticdetritus.com. You can read a description of the slide and view two nice bathymetric images. The nugget might be the information on a freeware application that was used to produce the images.

NASA Image

A new study by University of Southern California Scientists questions the theory that an asteroid impact caused the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history. The new culprits pointed to are volcanic eruptions and global warming.

A recent USGS podcast features the science of wildfires. Expert Erik Berg explains how science can be used before, during and after the fire begins. He also notes that although Southern California gets a lot of attention related to wildfires there are many other parts of the US with significant wildfire hazard.

The California wildfires were a disaster that impacted a very broad area and millions of people. Communications and data updates can be very difficult in a disaster that widespread. This article explores how a tool such as Google Earth and Google Maps can be used to make geographic information quickly available to anyone with a web connection at very low cost.

Examples of some of these information sharing services can be found at the Google Earth blog.

The tiny particles that make up smoke are known as “aerosols”. The image here is part of a small collection posted at the Earth Observatory website. They show the distribution of aerosols produced by the recent California wildfires. Pink areas are where smoke particles are most abundant, grading to lesser abundance in sequence from pink to yellow to green to blue.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 struck Northern California Tuesday night. The epicenter was about five miles northeast of Alum Rock and nine miles northeast of San Jose. The depth was only 5.7 miles. There are no reports of injuries of serious damage.

MSN Travel has a photo gallery of thirteen spectacular bridges from around the world. These include: Millau Viaduct, France; Puente de Alamillo, Spain; Kintai-kyo, Japan; Sydney Harbor Bridge, Australia; Golden Gate Bridge, California; Pont Neuf, France; San Diego-Coronado Bridge, California; Vasco da Gama Bridge, Portugal; Tower Bridge, England; Bridge of the Americas, Panama; Oberbaumbrücke, Germany; Zakim Bridge, Massachusetts; and Erasmusbrug, Netherlands.

Matt Rosenberg has a short but interesting article on his About.com Geography site. He presents some facts and figures on the impact of Hurricane Katrina compared to the recent fires in California. Lots of people are comparing the two - here is where you can see some numbers.

Cool weather, showers and calming Santa Ana winds are helping firefighters in California get a better position on the wildfires that have been burning there for more than a week.

The hot and swift Santa Ana winds that fanned the California wildfires are slowing today and are expected to stop by day’s end. This should slow the spread of the fires and make fighting them easier and a little safer for the firefighters. Still, billions of dollars in losses are expected before the fires are out.

The FBI is gathering evidence to determine if the California wildfires were caused by arson. These fires have burned hundreds of thousands of acres, destroyed tens of thousands of houses and forced the evacuation of over one million people.

This is a high resolution satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe. On it you can see smoke plumes, burn areas, threatened real estate and much more for the Santa Clarita, California area. Be sure to use the horizontal and vertical scroll bar of your browser to scan the entire image.

This is a high resolution satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe. On it you can see smoke plumes, burn areas, threatened homes and much more for the Ramona, California area. Be sure to use the horizontal and vertical scroll bar of your browser to scan the entire image.

Billions of dollars worth of homes, property, businesses and infrastructure have been ruined by the California wildfires. Meteorologists are predicting that the strong winds which have fanned and spread the flames will subside later today.

At right: Earth Observatory image showing smoke plumes hundreds of miles out over the Pacific.

The Google Earth Blog has links and KML files that provide information and visuals on the California wildfires. The one that we think does the best job is the KPBS Fire Map.

Heavy winds, dry conditions and a shortage of equipment and personnel compared to the challenge have empowered the California wildfires. About one million are said to have been evacuated from their homes. Governor Schwarzenegger says that 68,000 homes are threatened.

Earthobservatory has satellite images of the Southern California area showing the tremendous smoke plumes of the southern California wildfires. Large amounts of smoke and dust are pouring across the area and out over the Pacific Ocean.