Seismogenic Zone Riverside / San Francisco
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A few years ago, I drew some comics starring personifications of California’s faults for an outreach event. Due to lack of funding, we were never able to get the comics printed. There’s another outreach event coming up, though, and I’ll get to bring the comics to this one. I can’t look at the stuff from 2009 without thinking about how terrible it looks, so I’m redrawing things. Luckily, this event only focuses on the southern desert faults, so I don’t have to redraw all 28 pages right now!

(Source: seismogenic)

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20 / 08
24 notes

A friend of mine just messaged me on Facebook to ask if I got her text at 3 AM about the Sumatra earthquakes. I told her I hadn’t. She then asked if I got any of her other texts, since she’s been messaging me whenever she hears about a big earthquake anywhere. Once again, I told her I hadn’t.

As it turns out, she’d been texting my old number, though I know she has my new one (well, “new” as of 2010), because she’s texted me there in the past. In the context of this conversation, I also realized I never turned off USGS earthquake notifications when I switched from the 703 number to the 415 number.

So, uh, random person in northern Virginia who has my old number and has been getting texts about small earthquakes in California and large ones around the world, you have my sincere apologies!

11 / 04
2 notes

// Earthquake Playlist//

I am a seismologist with a musical background, and as such, I’ve been compiling as many songs about earthquakes as I can possibly find for the past several years. My criteria for a song to make this list are either that it actually really truly be about earthquakes, or that there be fairly extensive earthquake-related imagery or metaphor. Name-checking specific events or faults gets more points than just saying the word “earthquake” once, even if the song isn’t directly about anything seismic (ie. “Wayward to Hayward” is an instrumental, “Neal’s Fandango” is a pre-1989 song that still mentions Loma Prieta peak a whole lot). The shorter subset playlists I’ve made out of this longer set tend to also include things like “All Shook Up,” “Shakin’ All Over,” “Shake Rattle and Roll,” or “I Feel the Earth Move.” I don’t include those on this list because branching out to include songs that sound seismic in context would be daunting, especially since I am not including every single song I’ve found that actually mentions the word “earthquake” once and only once.

Here is my list as it stands now, in alphabetical order by title. Despite there being many titles in common, each and every one of these is a unique song. None are covers. (Yes, I was surprised to find so many songs called “Loma Prieta”!)

A Quake! A Quake! - The Animaniacs
Another Earthquake - Aaron Carter
The Ballad of San Andreas - Julie Felix
The Burning of Frisco Town - 1906 period song
California - Belinda Carlisle
California Earthquake - Cass Elliott
California Earthquake - Norman Greenbaum
California Earthquake Song - Danney Ball
The California Shake - Margot Guryan
Day After Day (It’s Slippin’ Away) - Shango
Earthquake - Alicia Healey
Earthquake - Fortunate Youth
Earthquake - Little Boots
Earthquake - Sarah Cheevers
The Earthquake - High Country
The Earthquake Came At Dawn - 1906 period song
The Earthquake Of Your Love - Al Kooper
Earthquake Rumble - Bill Nye the Science Guy
Earthquake Song - The Little Girls
Earthquake Song - Ventilator
Earthquake Weather - Beck
End of the World - REM (or Great Big Sea)
La Falla de San Andrés - Kevin Johansen
Getting Through To Her - 311
The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 - Bob Blake
Livin’ on the Fault Line - The Doobie Brothers
Loma Prieta - Amy Cook
Loma Prieta - Liz Pappademas
Loma Prieta - Matt the Electrician
Natural Disaster - Muse
Neal’s Fandango - The Doobie Brothers
New Madrid - Uncle Tupelo
Of Pressure - Mirah
Phoenix and the Faultline - The Plastic Constellations
The Quake of ‘89 - Kathy Kallick
Richter Scale - Kent Clark, Elliot Davis, and the Caltech Stock Company
San Andreas - Meg Hutchinson
San Andreas - Steve Gollnick
San Andreas Fault - Anique Granger
San Andreas Fault - Bazza
San Andreas Fault - Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band
San Andreas Fault - Natalie Merchant
San Andreas Fault - The Sundowners
San Andreas Fault - Top Of The Fair
San Francisco, Our Beloved -1906 period song
The Santa Barbara Earthquake - Green Bailey
Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes - Los Lobos
Sin City - Uncle Tupelo
Southern California Wants To Be Western New York - Dar Williams
Wayward to Hayward - Ricky Skaggs
Why Does This Always Happen To Me - Weird Al Yankovic
Wrecking Ball - Gillian Welch

Any glaring omissions? Any suggestions for expanding this list to an even more insufferable magnitude?

14 / 09
38 notes
New comic! Well, new-ish, since I started it in the winter, and since I actually finished it last week but forgot to post it. This is based on a conversation I had about the worst case scenario for the Big One in the Bay Area. I just adapted it a little so that the faults and the bridge are characters with thoughts and fears, because why not?

New comic! Well, new-ish, since I started it in the winter, and since I actually finished it last week but forgot to post it.

This is based on a conversation I had about the worst case scenario for the Big One in the Bay Area. I just adapted it a little so that the faults and the bridge are characters with thoughts and fears, because why not?

25 / 07
1 note
Julian. 28. Riverside. Seismology PhD student. Player of many musical instruments. Occasional camera wielder. Personifies places and things and draws comics about them. My heart is in San Francisco.