earth sciences
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June 24, 2026 Venezuela M7.2 and 7.5 earthquake doublet
Yesterday at 6 pm local time (3 pm in Arizona) pair of large earthquakes occurred in rapid succession along the northern coast of Venezuela. The first, an M7.2, ruptured at a depth of about 20 km and
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Presentation for Harnessing Massive Data Across Geophysical Domains and Applications: Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics Spring Meeting 2026
I enjoyed the opportunity to present in the spring meeting of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics Spring Meeting 2026. The meeting was entitled: [Harnessing Massive
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San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain Field trips
Recently, I pulled together some notes for the [SCEC UNREST](https://www.scec.org/events/2026-scec-unrest-workshop/) Field trip in the Carrizo Plain. It was a great conversation to share with the
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Lego Mineral Set: Fluorite and Tangerine Quartz
In October 2025, Lego dropped a set that perfectly combined my two formative childhood obsessions: building kits and the minerals exhibit at the Pink Palace Museum in my hometown. My face transformed
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Oregon Trail Geology
In August 2025, work sent me on my most far-flung environmental due diligence site visit yet. I flew into Denver and drove four hours to the town nearest the site that had a hotel. This town was
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Goat Rocks Wilderness Geology
For Part 1 of this series, check out my previous post on Goat Rocks Wilderness Backpacking. I brought up a laundry list of geology questions at the end of my last blog post about the Goat Rocks
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Goat Rocks Wilderness Backpacking
When I first moved to Seattle, I bought a map of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness at REI and was so spoiled for choice that I barely looked elsewhere. But in summer 2023 some friends regaled me of their
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M4-M5 earthquakes in the Awash area of Ethiopia (late 2024)
There have been numerous M4-M5 earthquakes in the Awash area of Ethiopia over the last few months. This is within the Main Ethiopia Rift at its NE end where it begins to open into the Afar. There is
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Tuck Lake and Jade Lake Geology
In my last post, I chronicled the 2023 backpacking trip to Deception Pass, Marmot Lake, Jade Lake, and Tuck Lake with my twin sister and OG hiking buddy, Heather. Now I get to nerd out about all the
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Twin Trek 2023
Like many of my Twin Trek posts, this is a two-parter: this is the travelogue post, with a geology post yet to come. Possibly multiple geology posts. In February 2023 I kicked into planning mode for
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Sparkly new rocks
I realize I haven’t posted in almost a year now, but I promise I have a good reason. You see, last summer two very important new (to us) rocks came onto the scene. My wonderful hiking companion and
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Remembering Thomas C. Hanks
I attended the **Tom Hanks, a Remembrance** [symposium](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/esc/symposium/) at the USGS in Moffett Field Oct. 17, 2024. It was a great chance to remember Tom, reflect on his
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Open Science recognition prize at AGU 2023
Our [OpenTopography](https://www.opentopography.org/) project was honored at this year's AGU with the [Open Science Recognition prize](https://www.agu.org/honors/open-science): "For outstanding
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The Boxley Blowout – Engineering mistakes ruin Christmas 1918
In my last post I explored how the construction of dams along the Cedar River led to Rattlesnake Lake swallowing the small town of Moncton in 1914. The dam-related disasters didn’t stop there, and
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Dam creates lakes…both upstream and downstream.
My girlfriend and I put up with the crowds to spend a spring-like January afternoon hiking up Rattlesnake Ledge, one of the Seattle area’s best-known day hikes. The trail was a delightful conga
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Determining the cell size of a Digital Elevation Model from point density
We regulary refer to high resolution topography (HRT) as having Digital Elevation Model (DEM) pixel sizes with their edges less than 1 m. Many raster DEMs derived from airborne laser swath mapping
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Serpentinite stories – Beverly Creek to Ingalls Lake
So I dropped a lot of hints in my post about my Lake Ingalls hiking adventure about how I made incorrect assumptions about the rock. Every geologist is biased by the rocks they studied first. For me,
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A simple evolutionary model for fragile geologic features
The fragility of geologic features, such as precariously balanced rocks (PBRs), can be measured by a simple parameter like α. For the case of a PBR is the smallest of the angles between the vertical
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Eminent earthquake scientists: Clarence Allen and Robert Wallace oral histories
For some "light reading" over the winter break, I have enjoyed a read of oral histories of Clarence Allen (Caltech) and Robert Wallace (USGS). [EARTHQUAKES, MINERALS AND ME: WITH THE USGS,
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AI art: what does " Tectonic Geomorphic San Andreas Fault" look like?
I saw a link to [https://app.wombo.art/](https://app.wombo.art/) on twitter and people were posting what they got out of using their research or dissertation titles as a prompt. [It is pretty
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Remembering Paul J. Umhoefer
I recently wrote this memorial for the Geological Society of America Structural Geology and Tectonics Division (which I am now beginning my stint as chairman or soon will). That is the reason for the
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Remembering Omar Abdullah
I heard in late August 2021 that Omar Abdullah was killed in the unrest that is occurring in Ethiopia. I did not learn of any details but he was an embasa--a lion--and no doubt he was there defending
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NSF AC GEO Report on Portfolio Review of EAR Seismology and Geodesy Instrumentation Completed
In April 2021, we finished a fairly intensive project: [AC GEO Report on Portfolio Review of EAR Seismology and Geodesy
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Salt River terraces field geology exercise and updated guide
The Salt River in central Arizona has a spectactular set of fluvial terraces developed along it. I have lead a number of field trips along the Salt River for outreach and most importantly for our
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Exploring diffusion for hillslope changes using a spreadsheet
I became obsessed with diffusion erosion modeling in my [PhD work](http://arrowsmith410-598.asu.edu/Lectures/Lecture8/Arrowsmith_Appendix_A_1995.pdf). It is a simple (certainly oversimplified) way to
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