CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 11, 2013 | By Bettina Boxall
The geothermal power plants at Southern California's Salton Sea don't just produce electricity, they also trigger thousands of temblors not far from one of the West Coast's most dangerous earthquake faults, a new study says. Research published online Thursday in the journal Science found that as production rose at the Imperial County geothermal field, so did the number of earthquakes. From 1981 through 2012, more than 10,000 earthquakes above magnitude 1.75 were recorded in the area.
NEWS
January 29, 2013 | By Paul Whitefield
In the movie “Galaxy Quest” (a cult classic comedy ; I give it 3 stars and a big thumbs-up), the hero gains access to a device that allows him to reverse time. The catch? It's for just 13 seconds. What good would it do to be able to go back in time just 13 seconds, you -- and the “Galaxy Quest” hero -- ask? Well, see the movie and find out. (No spoiler alert needed.) Then perhaps you can also explain to me why we shouldn't get behind the plan to build an early warning system for earthquakes, which a group of California's top geophysicists and seismologists announced Monday.
SCIENCE
January 9, 2013 | By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times
For decades, scientists have assumed the central portion of California's San Andreas fault acts as a barrier that prevents a big quake in the southern part of the state from spreading to the north, and vice versa. As a result, a mega-quake that could be felt from San Diego to San Francisco was widely considered impossible. But that key fault segment might not serve as a barrier in all cases, researchers wrote Wednesday in the online edition of the journal Nature. Using a combination of laboratory measurements and computer simulations, the two scientists showed how so-called creeping segments in a fault - long thought to be benign because they slip slowly and steadily along as tectonic plates shift - might behave like locked segments, which build up stress over time and then rupture.
TRAVEL
November 25, 2012
EUROPE Learn the ins and outs of riding the rails in Europe with Distant Lands' rail agent Susan Hickman. When, where : 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission, info: Free. (626) 449-3220. SNOWSHOEING Workshop Experts will discuss snowshoeing basics such as selecting gear and where to go to get started. When, where: 7 p.m. Wednesday at the REI store in Arcadia, 214 N. Santa Anita Ave., and 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the REI store in Huntington Beach, 7777 Edinger Ave. Admission, info: Free.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 26, 2012 | By Kate Mather, David Zahniser and Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times
An "earthquake storm" continued to rattle Imperial County late Sunday, with the region experiencing hundreds of mostly low-intensity temblors that could be felt in neighboring counties. The seismic activity is not unusual for the area around Brawley, a city of about 25,000 where the quakes were centered and located between the San Andreas and Imperial faults, experts said. The spurt of smaller quakes does not necessarily herald that the Big One is on its way, they said. After a series of milder quakes in the morning, a magnitude 3.8 temblor hit at 10:02 a.m. about three miles northwest of Brawley, and was followed by a nearly continuous series of quakes in the same general area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
TRAVEL
June 24, 2012 | By Susan Spano, Special to the Los Angeles Times
CARRIZO PLAIN NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. - In his obsession to see every back road in Southern California, my brother, John, recently said, "Let's go to Carrizo Plain. " "Where's that?" I asked. He waved his palm in the air. "Over there. " Meaning, I gathered, someplace between Bakersfield and Santa Barbara. The website for the Bureau of Land Management, which helps administer Carrizo Plain National Monument, offers more precise directions, though it begins by warning visitors not to use GPS mapping software to get there.