What? You Were Expecting This?

If you were watching the coverage of today's tsunami in the Pacific Ocean basin, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was what was converging on Waikiki, given the breathless reporting that took place on the cable networks. This photo began life as a photoshop effort that circulated on the internet in the days following the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami of 2004. It wasn't enough that the tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Indian Ocean. Someone had to try and make it seem bigger (if someone actually wants to admit owning a copyright to the photo, let me know and I will take it down if you wish).

I began the day being somewhat impressed with the quality of the discussion of the massive earthquake in Chile. Some of the newsreaders displayed some level of knowledge about just how big the quake was (the 5th largest ever recorded in the last hundred years or so) and something of how quakes are assessed and measured. But then the scene shifted to Hawaii and I became more and more disillusioned.

What a wonderful opportunity to educate an audience on the nature of geologic hazards and processes! A tsunami was coming and the story would unfold in front of the world. We would be able to see it happen and even better understand what was happening. What took place instead? Four or five wasted hours of breathless useless words, an unrealistic build-up to a climax that wasn't going to happen, and a near total misunderstanding of the extraordinary thing that did happen right there on the screen in front of us. The arrival of the tsunami was obscured by one of those ridiculous banners (which I could almost swear said "BREAKING STORY: HAWAII ABOUT TO WASH INTO THE SEA", but I could be mistaken). The newsreaders went on babbling, blithly unaware of what was happening on the screen. Because it wasn't killing anyone, I guess.

But I forget myself...of course television exists only to sell commercial products, and the only way products will be sold is if millions upon millions of people are watching. News is merely a means to an end, and the end has little to do with educating the public. But who am I to complain? I'm just a geologist and teacher who felt horribly disappointed today at what could have been.

I think about the Olympics I've been watching this week...tens of millions of dollars were spent designing a media extravaganza in which every aspect of every sporting event could be seen from three or four different camera angles. There seemed to be hundreds of expert commentators who could describe every single move made by every single athlete. Every triple-toe-lutz, every slalom turn.

But to describe a geologic event of worldwide importance and interest? With twelve hours of lead time, the networks got all of one camera pointed to Hilo Bay?? As far as I am concerned, the day was an epic fail by the news media.

I see little evidence that the cable networks employ even a single scientist. The only scientists ever in evidence are the "meteorologists" but does anyone think they were chosen for their expertise? Screen presence is everything, of course. Most of the weather people show a shocking ignorance of climate science and the issues involved in global warming and climate change. Of course when a volcano erupts or a fault slips to produce an earthquake, the network newsreaders interview volcanologists and geologists. But they almost never ask the right questions, and half the time they are looking for the answers that feed their preconceptions and the need to increase viewership.

Am I being too tough on the cable networks? What do you think?

Liveblogging a Tsunami

Photo from MSNBC

I take back the nice things I said about the media coverage. They have the tsunami directly affecting Hilo Bay, but they keep putting their "breaking news" banner right over the most visible aspect of the receding water as the tsunami hits (see the unblocked picture above). And then they keep going back to Oahu where absolutely nothing is happening, or repeating pictures of the same stupid surfer from three hours ago. They have a tsunami happening in front of them and don't seem to realize it. A big learning moment is passing them (and us) by.

A reporter on one of those channels says they are hoping for the best...but to be cynical, if the best happens, I suspect there will be much gnashing of teeth about Chicken Little and "inaccurate" predictions of an inherently unpredictable event.

Updated Note 2:30 PST:

The photo is Coconut Island in Hilo Bay. In 1946, a horrendous tsunami overran the small island, and swept into downtown Hilo, killing more than 100 people. Today's event is thankfully much smaller, though it is not over with yet.

Update 2:55 PST:

All the news networks went to commercials. I guess the tsunami is over (it's not, but it wasn't big enough to keep their interest).

Update 3:05 PST:

The tsunami has in fact caused at least some fatalities, just not in Hawaii, and notably not mentioned on the networks that I can tell (on islands closer to Chile). A more comprehensive live blog about the earthquake and tsunami on a more worldwide basis can be found at EnduringAmerica. I suggest checking there for some straight blogging without my opinions of the media coverage.

Update 3:37 PST:

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

(from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)

GAUGE LOCATION
------------------- ----- ------ ----- --------------- -----
KAWAIHAE HAWAII 0.52M / 1.7FT
BARBERS PT HI 0.19M / 0.6FT
KAUMALAPAU HAWAII 0.18M / 0.6FT
KAHULUI MAUI 0.98M / 3.2FT
NAWILIWILI KAUAI 0.28M / 0.9FT
HILO HI 0.86M / 2.8FT
PAGO PAGO AS 0.66M / 2.2FT

Also, as predicted, the weasels in the media are complaining about a "false alarm". They seem almost disappointed that there wasn't any widespread death and destruction in Hawaii. At the end of the interview with someone from the Warning Center the newsreader admitted that the waves actually did reach the proportions predicted, just at the lower end of the prediction range.

(PS: I like weasels. It's just an expression)

When a Magnitude 6.9 Earthquake is an Aftershock....

There wasn't a whole lot of information when I wrote about the 8.8 earthquake in Chile in the earliest hours of the morning. Information is starting to flood in now from many sources, and my first impression is media coverage is a bit better than it was for the Haiti quake and other earlier events. When I say "better", I don't mean more cameras, I mean evidence of an effort by the reporters to educate themselves about the basic science of earthquakes.

My first thought is for the people who have been affected, both in Chile and across the Pacific basin. A quake this big is going to have huge impacts. The aftershocks are going to be an issue: my USGS notifications are set for any quakes bigger than 5.5 and there have been 11 of them so far, with the largest at 6.9. For perspective, 6.9 is the size of the Loma Prieta earthquake here in California from 1989. It killed 4 dozen people and did around $10 billion in damage. The quake in Haiti was a somewhat larger 7.0. Aftershocks are going to continue for a long time, over a region about 600 miles long (the size of the fault zone that shifted in this quake).

The tsunami is a huge threat. The size of a tsunami in any particular place is dependent on many factors, including the size of the earthquake (which was colossal), how the quake transferred energy to the ocean water (unknown to me at this point), and the shape and depth of the coastline where the tsunami strikes. All I can say to my Pacific Basin friends is that when the Civil Defense folks set off the sirens, take it seriously! Hawaii in particular has a tragic history with tsunamis, and there has been a vast amount of coastal development since the last major tsunami (in 1960, also caused by an earthquake in Chile). There will be a big problem of people wandering down to the beach to watch the tsunami, which can only be described as an act of idiocy. Get to higher ground or higher floors. If the warnings are inaccurate, you've only lost a bit of time, but if they are accurate, your life will be saved. Don't go to the coast until the "all clear" is given, because there will be more than one surge of water. You can't swim your way out of a tsunami; they are one of the most dangerous of geologic events, as the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 demonstrated.

Big Quake in Chile - Upgraded magnitude 8.8

A huge earthquake has struck offshore of Maule, Chile. Initially reported at magnitude 8.3, the quake has been upgraded to 8.8, making it the sixth largest quake recorded in the world since 1900 (if the revision stands). A tsunami warning has been issued, but there are no reports out of the region yet whether it has materialized. Power outages have been reported in Santiago, but no other reports of damage yet. Needless to say, such a quake is capable of doing grevious damage (the energy of this quake is hundreds of times more than the 7.0 quake that hit Haiti six weeks ago).

The top ten most powerful quakes since 1900 (courtesy of the US Geological Survey)

1. Chile 1960 9.5
2. Prince William Sound, Alaska 1964 9.2

3. Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra 2004 9.1
4. Kamchatka 1952 9.0

5. Off the Coast of Ecuador 1906 8.8

6. Rat Islands, Alaska 1965 8.7
7. Northern Sumatra, Indonesia 2005 8.6

8. Assam - Tibet 1950 8.6
9. Andreanof Islands, Alaska 1957 8.6
10. Southern Sumatra, Indonesia 2007 8.5
11. Banda Sea, Indonesia 1938 8.5
12. Kamchatka 1923 8.5
13. Chile-Argentina Border 1922 8.5
14. Kuril Islands 1963 8.5

The "Other" California: Havin' Fun With Sasquatch

An exploration of the Klamath Mountains of California is not complete without a discussion of...well, let me mention a field trip story. The punchline isn't very exciting, but here goes.

We take a field studies trip to the Cascades every other September. To split up some of the long drives, we leave on a Thursday afternoon and drive to a state park on the Sacramento River near Red Bluff. We usually arrive about 9:30 at night, at which point we roll out our sleeping bags and get a good night's sleep before really starting our class the next morning. Sometimes we have complications. One time we arrived to find the entire campground occupied by a convention of ultra-libertarian, almost-militia type folks having a barter fair. We had to barter with a very drunk organizer who was suspicious that we were members of the federal guvmit to negotiate out a little corner of the campground for ourselves. We had kind of a nervous evening.

Another year we had a different problem: we arrived and the entire campground was closed for renovations! I wasn't quite prepared for this, and we headed north on the highway looking for another place to stay. It took us a couple of wrong turns looking for a non-existent camp along the Sacramento River ("it's on the map, dangit!"), but finally around midnight we found a KOA that was willing to take in 30 weary travelers on short notice (and for a price). It was nice of them to put up with us, but it was an unremarkable place except for the men's bathroom. It had a giant diagram on the wall of all the Sasquatch sightings in northern California! We were in Bigfoot Country!

A discussion of Bigfoot is going to carry us into fringe territory along with UFO's, Lemurians, Atlantis, ghosts and who knows what, but at least Bigfoot is regarded as "fun". No one seems to think that they are plotting to take over the human race, or that they are attacking and eating people (apparently president Theodore Roosevelt provided the only exception).

So why won't biologists and other scientists accept the existence of Sasquatch? After all, there have been hundreds, maybe thousands of reported sightings, along with dozens of photos and footprints, especially since 1958 when tracks were found around the equipment at a logging camp (tracks made by the company owner to scare away vandals). We live in a visual society...why aren't photos enough?

I've been having fun reading some discussions lately about whether Yosemite's Half Dome can be seen from the floor of the Central Valley in California. The main evidence lies in a dozen or so photographs that have been posted on the internet by different individuals (including me). The interesting aspect of the discussion has been the many skeptics who insist that Half Dome absolutely cannot be seen from the valley, and who charge that the photos are an elaborate photographic hoax. So...a few people say it CAN be seen and offer a few grainy photographs, versus expert photographers and hikers who clearly know that it CAN'T. Isn't this the same situation that we have with Sasquatch?

Not really equivalent at all. Despite any arguments and calculations that can be offered by detractors, all one has to do is go to the right spot on an unusually clear day in the Central Valley, and there it is. Half Dome isn't going anywhere, and confirmation is easily achieved.

On the other hand, if Bigfoot-Sasquatch were an actual living species, the implications would be staggering. A second hominid species, a large one, living in North America alongside humans would be an astounding discovery. How did it evolve? How closely related is it to Homo sapiens? How can it have escaped discovery despite the intense development of the western states and the intense logging activity in the places where the species lives? And if the existence of the creature were to be in some way confirmed, what are the legal ramifications? Endangered Species Act? Would they be placed on reservations? (yes, that question is an indictment about government attitudes about First Nation/Native American people). In a word, it would be extraordinary.

So here is the problem: there isn't a shred of physical evidence that Bigfoot exists that can be subjected to any kind of scientific scrutiny: there are no bones, either recent or ancient, no droppings, no nesting/bedding sites, no artifacts, no bodies, no fur. Wildlife biologists will happily admit they were wrong when the physical evidence appears, but in a century of searching, nothing has emerged.

And consider something else: motivation. When we were accused (in a good-natured way, I hope) of being hoaxers in the Half Dome affair, I would have to respond: what do we have to gain? No one is going to pay us thousands of dollars for a grainy, slightly out-of-focus picture of Half Dome (not that I would turn down an offer!). But if I said I had a genuine picture of a Sasquatch (and I were a talented photo-manipulator; see the photo above!), I could potentially earn a fair amount of publicity and cash, even if the photo is later revealed to be retouched (the picture above is real, dangit, I swear it with my fingers crossed!).

Could Sasquatch really exist? Of course. But it is extremely unlikely. The evidence to confirm the existence of Bigfoot would have to be overwhelming. A century ago, a German meteorologist named Alfred Wegener said that continents had been drifting about the planet. Scientists were unconvinced by his evidence, which involved rock similarities, fossil similarites, and paleoclimate similarities. It was good scientific data, but geologists were able to offer alternative explanations that did not require movement of continents. It wasn't until new discoveries in the 1950's and 1960's in unexpected disciplines like paleomagnetism, and new technology became available that revealed details of the ocean floors that Wegener's hypothesis was accepted. In the process, the idea grew into a much more encompassing theory called plate tectonics (make no mistake: a theory is accepted scientific fact; it is hypotheses that are unconfirmed potential explanations). The fact that his hypothesis came to be accepted doesn't mean that any fringe science is automatically true. Scientists in all disciplines pretty much have to be skeptics by nature, and fringe ideas must meet the same exacting standards of evidence that any other hypotheses must meet.

The Other California: The Flotsam and Jetsam of an Ancient Ocean Basin

Map derived from Correlation of the Klamath Mountains and Sierra Nevada by W.P. Irwin

After a busy couple of weeks in other places, I'm getting back to the Other California, the exploration of the places in my fair state that don't always show up on the postcards...

In most parts of the world, the geological story can be teased out by following some basic rules of stratigraphy: in a sequence of layers, the oldest is usually found at the base; if a layer appears in the side of a cliff, we can reasonably expect that it will found to continue at another location nearby. Sediments usually form in horizontal layers. These principles were realized three hundred years ago by Nicolas Steno, and ultimately led to the establishment of geology as a science. Geologists were able to use these principles and a growing knowledge of sedimentary structures and facies to work out a reasonably accurate story of the history of the crust in many parts of the world. In regions like the Alps of Europe and the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, the early geologists were able to unscramble incredibly complex rock sequences because they were able to correlate formations from one mountain ridge to another. Fault lines were not necessarily a problem; walk far enough and you could find a continuation of your missing layers somewhere along the other side of the fault.

The rules seemed to apply, until the geologists arrived in California. There are places in the state where the rocks are so chaotic and discontinuous that geologists with the classic training in stratigraphy had to throw up their hands in frustration. Following an outcrop? Great, there's a fault. We'll look for a continuation of the layer. And look. And look some more. And never find it. What are these older rocks doing on top of these younger rocks? That doesn't make sense. And why can't we find any fossils in many of these rocks? They're sedimentary, they should have fossils. California was an enigma and a chaotic mess to the first geologists who tried to pry loose her secrets in places like the Coast Ranges, the Transverse Ranges, and the Sierra Nevada.

There is a region that is pretty much the epitome of the chaos that is California geology. Tucked between the Cascades and the Coast Ranges of Northern California, the Klamath Mountains rise to elevations of just over 9,000 feet, and essentially resemble a large plateau that has been deeply dissected by stream erosion, especially along the Trinity and Klamath Rivers. The Klamaths are divided by geographers into a number of subordinate ranges, the Siskiyous, the Trinity Alps, the Marble Mountains, and others, and most of the country is untrammeled wilderness.

The Klamaths are a lesson in geology contradictions. Almost every kind of marine environment shows up somewhere, shallow nearshore deposits, coral reefs, carbonate shelves, deep ocean muds and trench deposits, but in close proximity are found unusual igneous rocks derived from the deep mantle and the base of the ocean crust. Here and there the rocks are intruded by granitic plutons much like those of the nearby Sierra Nevada, but also there are granites that are much older. Everywhere there are faults. Mostly they are thrust faults but occasionally normal faults are found, indicating that both compressional and extensional forces have affected the rocks.

The key to unraveling the mysteries of the Klamath Mountains was to stop trying to make logical sense of the rocks! There was not a single sequential story to be deciphered for this part of the world at all, there were a multitude of stories, stories that unfolded in many different places around the planet. One of the first researchers to make this connection, W.P. Irwin (in the early 1960's), divided the rock sequences into a series of "belts" that seemed to have originated in places other than the Klamaths. This model evolved into the concept of accreted terranes, a pioneering idea that played a central part in the acceptance of "continental drift" and plate tectonic theory in the late 1960's.

A terrane is a term used to denote:

...a fault-bounded geologic region that differs from adjoining geologic regions by its distinctive stratigraphy, structure, tectonic history, and in some cases biota ...Terranes may be either allochthonous or autochthonous, far-traveled or near their point of origin. Terranes may amalgamate together to form a superterrane, and terranes become accreted terranes after they collide with continental crust along an active plate margin.*

Translated, a terrane is the crustal equivalent of the debris that collects in a river eddy: the floating branches, leaves, bits of styrofoam coolers, and plastic bottles. In this case, the Klamath Mountains were a collecting point of various bits of ocean crust and continental fragments in the eastern Pacific region during Paleozoic and Mesozoic time.

Four major terranes were originally identified in the Klamaths by Irwin: the Eastern Klamath, the Central Metamorphic, the Western Paleozoic and Triassic, and the Western Jurassic. With continued research, these have been subdivided into many subterranes. A hint of the complexity can be discerned in the geologic map shown above, which is part of an effort to correlate the terranes of the Klamath Mountains to those in the northern Sierra Nevada.

A bit of a plea: Geotripper needs your help! I've explored a lot of California, but not so much in the Klamaths. Do you have a favorite spot you would like to share? Be a Geotripper Geoblogger for a day, and tell us about it!

*The Terrane Puzzle: New Perspectives on Paleontology and Stratigraphy from the North American Cordillera, edited by Robert B. Blodgett, and George D. Stanley, Jr.; Geological Society of America Special Paper 442, page 2.

New Blog on Northwest U.S. Geology: Road Trips!

Are you interested in geology field guides for the northwestern United States? You might want to check out a new blog by Dave Tucker at Western Washington University: Northwest Geology Field Trips. It has a wealth of information and some fun looking trips; check it out!

Dave is also the director of the Mount Baker Volcano Research Center, which has a website here. For those who are less familiar with the volcanoes of the Pacific Northwest, Mt. Baker seemed to be on the verge of erupting in 1975-76, and has had a fair amount of activity in late Pleistocene and Holocene time. That's Mt. Baker in the photo above, as seen from Whidbey Island.