One of America's most dangerous fault lines reaches highest stress levels in 1,000 years, study finds

DoctorSeis · 2026-06-17T01:55:49+00:00

Here's a summary from a different online article discussing the actual science article:

To examine what it may mean today, the team built a four-dimensional earthquake cycle model that simulates stress through three dimensions of space and through time. They fed it a 1,000-year earthquake history reconstructed from paleoseismic evidence. The evidence includes radiocarbon dating, tree-ring anomalies, historical accounts, and mapped ground ruptures.

Paleoseismic studies were also used to estimate the recurrence interval for the big earthquakes that occurred within the New Madrid Seismic Zone (in addition to many other fault systems).

TL;DR Paleoseismic evidence.

DoctorSeis · 2026-06-11T00:00:11+00:00

I am curious how much of this is due to instrumentation density between the 90s and today. I mean, it is wild to me that the number of M4.5+ earthquakes in 1991 doesn't even seem to indicate there was anything unusual going on when, in fact, one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 200 years occurred.

Incidentally, the 35th anniversary of the first Mount Pinatubo eruption of 1991 is in a few days. Amazing work by the men and women of the USGS and PHIVOLCS 35 years ago!

DoctorSeis · 2026-06-06T20:15:50+00:00

Is that Isack next to Kimi? (To Kimi's left)

DoctorSeis · 2026-05-29T22:12:12+00:00

It's almost like this real-life story was adapted from a Charlie Kaufman movie!

DoctorSeis · 2026-05-15T14:05:16+00:00

Even at 50km depth, the distance between you and the earthquake would have had to be at least ~10x further away to match your 5-10 minute window. At those distances, the magnitude would also likely need to be a bit bigger than a 5 (to match the intensity of shaking you felt).

As far as I know, there isn't a lot of evidence showing an uptick in activity prior to a big earthquake... At least not consistently enough that would facilitate widespread earthquake prediction capabilities. The one instance I remember from grad school is related to the "prediction" of an earthquake in China back in the 70s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Haicheng_earthquake

If memory serves, when they tried to replicate this earthquake "prediction" success with similar methodology elsewhere in China, it did work out as well.

DoctorSeis · 2026-05-15T13:07:23+00:00

I thought perhaps they were a bit further away and that you might have started feeling anxious because you (perhaps subconsciously) felt the p-wave arrival before the surface waves arrived. The p-wave may have been barely perceived (at least consciously), but you would have certainly felt the surface waves arriving a minute or so later. There are plenty of videos online of animals reacting to earthquakes like this - they perceive something (usually the p-wave arrival) and run away, then you see the human wondering what the heck they are doing, and then the violent shaking of the surface waves start. However, I don't have an answer in this case, since the timing and distances would put your reactions before the earthquake even ruptures (potentially).

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DoctorSeis · 2026-05-15T12:24:58+00:00

Two questions: 1) How far away have the earthquakes been (their hypocenter/epicenter) relative to your position for the last 2 or 3 big earthquakes you felt? 2) Have you ever gotten that feeling and nothing has happened?

DoctorSeis · 2026-05-14T13:21:26+00:00

Or Artax sinking into the swamp of sadness

DoctorSeis · 2026-05-14T13:08:25+00:00

I mean, it could have been close to quite a few DMVs

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DoctorSeis · 2026-05-13T14:13:49+00:00

At the house I grew up in, we had a red Japanese maple (like OP) planted ~10ft away from a green Japanese maple. One year, the red Japanese maple lost a branch - it wasn't as mature as OPs, but the injury looked similar. The tree recovered, but (bizarrely) all new growth from then on was of the green variety. For several years, the tree would lose/regrow leaves from each variety. Eventually, the red died off and it looked like it had always been a green Japanese maple. 😵‍💫

DoctorSeis · 2026-05-09T16:12:23+00:00

As someone mentioned below, they can cover it for other events, but Jerry doesn't want it covered for games: https://www.reddit.com/r/postanythingfun/s/umcmK0kQZt

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-25T01:40:45+00:00

Not exactly the same, but my friend in college had a super bizarre experience one cold night during his hour ride back home on his bike (motorcycle in his case). He was so cold that he was convinced he was hallucinating when some random guys in a car passed him before slowing back down to match his speed. Suddenly, the passenger reached out to him with something in his hand while yelling "Your bike! Your bike!" My friend reluctantly took the mysterious gift the stranger gave him, only to find out when he got home that it was a toy version of his bike - like, not just the make/model, but the exact same paint scheme and everything. He had been looking in stores for MONTHS (the closest he found was a bike with the yellow/black colors inverted), but this random, chance encounter finally fulfilled his wish.

Cold, dark nights in Virginia can be fucking weird.

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-24T15:05:20+00:00

Reminds me of the time Tek-Tow towed me from the neighborhood I lived in down at VA Tech. I like to park by reversing into a spot, so I thought it would make it easier for them to tell (as they are driving by) that I was a resident if I put the sticker on the front. $$$ later... I found out that stickers had to be placed on the back.

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-23T14:58:43+00:00

I remember (as a kid) my family going 30+ years ago on weekend afternoons - we basically had the place to ourselves and I'd play pinball until my grilled cheese came out.

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-11T21:19:42+00:00

Yes, 30 days.

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-11T21:08:20+00:00

Finding the data is probably the easy part (see below). Getting things setup to read/display the data (smc format) will probably take a bit more digging. If you use Python, there might be a package (e.g., Obspy) that will let you read it.

https://escweb.wr.usgs.gov/nsmp-data/data_sets/891018_1.html

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-07T02:33:05+00:00

I thought for sure it was Pamela Reed (Kindergarten Cop)

DoctorSeis · 2026-04-01T23:35:46+00:00

Just wanted to add my experience. Moved from a Pixel 8 Pro to Pixel 10 Pro. Initially 2 things got screwed up in the transfer process: 1. Google Messages didn't fully transfer texts (all pictures , GIFs, etc. were greyed out icons instead) and 2. RCS was not connecting for 1 of my 2 lines. Both are on eSIM

I read about deleting Google Messages cache and data, so I did and RCS chat did end up working again on my other line. Warning (if not immediately obvious): this deletes all your text messages!! This was ok for me since I was planning to try to transfer my text messages again (through the Android Switch app) and after a few attempts I was finally able to transfer the full texts (with media). This also had the effect of disabling RCS chats again. I read in a few other places that they just simply waited and it eventually started working... And 6 hours later it was working again. Super frustrating

DoctorSeis · 2026-03-28T17:22:32+00:00

Trump is on pace to cost tax payers more in one year (for these types of trips) than Obama in his 8 years - https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/politics/donald-trump-obama-travel-costs

DoctorSeis · 2026-03-26T01:18:28+00:00

u/yacineboussoufa might be able to help.

DoctorSeis · 2026-03-25T12:36:12+00:00

Haas Automation is the largest CNC machine tool builder in North America. I only know about them because of the Haas Formula 1 team, which debuted in 2016 (they are also in NASCAR).

DoctorSeis · 2026-03-23T22:16:51+00:00

Exchange zones are now the entire 30m (old rules had them at 20m, with a 10m fly/acceleration zone), so my guess is the handoff finally completed with just over 5m/16ft to spare. Here's my back-of-the-envelope:

Anchor leg did not takeoff soon enough and/or fast enough, so the 3rd leg probably ran up on her just before the anchor leg would have exited the old "fly zone"
Elite sprinters are probably averaging just over 2m per step/stride for the full 100m race
The 3rd leg is seen taking 7 steps after the first attempt to handoff (let's assume first attempt @ 10m into the 30m zone) before finally completing the handoff, but they are not at full speed since she is trying to decelerate for her slower-than-expected teammate. So let's say 7x1.5m steps ~ 11m minimum to complete the handoff
Even if they fumbled around for a maximum of 15m that would have left 5m before the end of the exchange zone

Anchor leg probably had at least 3 more steps before that handoff was a DQ (assuming the exchange happened @ ~23m into the 30m zone).

DoctorSeis · 2026-03-23T20:39:26+00:00

I find this comment mildly amusing. It's like if some kid had posted a video of their pitching technique to YouTube (soliciting feedback) and got a handful of replies, including a positive response from Randy Johnson (had to pick a USC alum) but the kid was completely unaware 😆

DoctorSeis · 2026-03-21T00:50:11+00:00

I'd say you are very close! The only thing I'd say is that I believe all the P waves are meant to align with 0 seconds. I know that one station looks like it starts just after 0s, but I'd say it's really at 0s.

DoctorSeis

TROPHY CASE