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Posts by Lucy Jones

Thank you. It was fun to write, getting to dig into historical research

2 weeks ago 2 0 0 0
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‘In The Name of a Warming Earth’ – Dr. Lucy Jones - Local News Pasadena Data feels real when it's delivered as emotion Data feels real when it's delivered as emotion

We have an exciting event coming up to bring music and science together- a collaboration between Colburn School and Caltech. April 25. In The Name of a Warming Earth' - Dr. Lucy Jones localnewspasadena.com/2026/in-the-...

2 weeks ago 23 4 0 0
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My last anniversary is the happiest one of the week. Georg Philipp Telemann was born 345 years ago and we are celebrating with an all-Telemann concert by Los Angeles Baroque

1 month ago 17 2 0 0
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The third anniversary of the week. 100 years ago today, LADWP began impounding water at the San Fransquito Dam in northern LA County. Exactly 2 years later on 3/12/1928, the dam failed suddenly and catastrophically, releasing 47million cubic meters of water, killing 430+ people.

1 month ago 107 33 4 8

The fault displacement (and therefore the tsunami height) at Tohoku was much larger than we had ever seen for that short a fault. So the planning was for a smaller event. We need to remember that the mean values are what's most likely to happen, not what will happen.

1 month ago 26 1 0 0
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Another anniversary. 15 years ago today, the M9.1 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami swept through northeaster Honshu, sweeping away whole towns and killing almost 18,000 people. Five years later, this town of Otsuchi was still struggling with what to allow to be rebuilt.

1 month ago 36 7 1 1
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The 3/10/1933 Long Beach quake killed 120 people and brought home the dangers from unreinforced masonry buildings. It led to the first seismic provisions in the building code and the passage of the Field Act that ensured strong seismic safety measures for public schools.

1 month ago 36 5 1 1
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The 1933 Long Beach earthquake occurred 93 years ago today, beginning near Huntington Beach and rupturing north for 15 miles to just north of Long Beach. It cause strong shaking through much of the Los Angeles region. with the worst damage in Long Beach and Compton.

1 month ago 52 14 1 1
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#EQHistory: 1971 M6.6 San Fernando. The event killed 65. In the aftermath Caltech seismologist Clarence Allen went to Sacramento with a message: geologists know where active faults are and we can prevent building on them. His testimony helped the passage of the Alquist-Priolo Act. buff.ly/Yzs6NPt

2 months ago 35 11 1 0

Volcano's producers sent the script to Caltech to ask if they could use Caltech name. Caltech lawyers asked me and Kate Hutton for our opinions because the seismologists seemed based on us. Permission was denied. "Rachel" dies in the lava. "Amy" falls in love with the OES guy. Who's the worst fate?

2 months ago 20 3 2 1

"Normal" aftershock sequence in California is a wide range - 95% of sequences range over a factor of a thousand (from 1 of a particular size to 1000 of that size). So this sequence is higher than the mean but still completely normal

3 months ago 4 1 1 0

That was actually the Joshua Tree earthquake of April 1992. Just 10 km or so west of today's quake. He now has his own PhD and his own little boy

3 months ago 17 1 0 0

Well, in Joshua Tree, you are likely to be feeling more tonight. This is a moderately active aftershock sequence. But remember the number falls off rapidly with time, with the second day having half as many aftershocks as the first day.

3 months ago 5 3 2 0

Tonight's M4.9 north of Indio is the largest quake in SoCal since the M5.2 near Julian last April.

3 months ago 58 13 2 0

To those with long memories, this looks similar to the beginning of the 1992 Joshua Tree sequence. However, 1992 was west of this event and thus closer to the San Andreas.

3 months ago 38 2 2 0
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A M4.9 quake occurred this evening north of Indio. It is east of the San Andreas fault, far enough away to not change the likelihood of a quake on the San Andreas. It's located very near the minor EW-striking Blue Cut fault
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

3 months ago 80 28 6 1
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Getting Through It Science Podcast · Updated Monthly · In this broadcast, Dr. Jones shares how the world works, why you might feel the way you do about a particular disaster, and how you can manage the chaos around you ...

I’m releasing a few new episodes of my podcast to discuss the science around wildfires podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

3 months ago 33 4 0 0
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As a fellow not-"really"-geologist, how about lithified or perhaps metamorphosed fault gouge? When I was doing rock mechanics experiments on fault gouge almost 50 years ago, a real geologist gave me this specimen and said it was from an exhumed fault. Looks pretty similar.

3 months ago 7 0 0 0

Again, Kyle and Judith provide a great summary of the science around this earthquake

4 months ago 44 15 0 0
This Land Is Your Land
This Land Is Your Land YouTube video by delreyjones

Sometimes, music is the only tool I have for coping with the world. youtu.be/2Xj0KSgD24k?...

4 months ago 45 5 2 0
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I love xkcd

5 months ago 189 30 2 1

(2 of 2) 3. The shallow depth suggests it is at the top part of the subduction zone that moved in the 2011 M9 3/11 disaster. By our standard definitions, this would be classified as aftershocks of 2011.

5 months ago 7 0 1 0

1. Earthquakes occur in sequences, so this is one sequence that happens to have a lot of both foreshocks and aftershocks. 2. The focal mechanism shows a thrust fault, suggesting this is on the subduction interface. ... (1 of 2)

5 months ago 2 0 1 0
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Lucy Jones: Seismology, ShakeOuts, and String Quartets | Making Los Angeles What do Chinese literature, medieval string instruments, and earthquake drills have in common? In Los Angeles, the answer is Lucy Jones. Often called “L.A.’s earthquake queen” — a nickname she’s not e...

This was a fun interview. It ended up being quite a retrospective on how seismology has changed over the 4 decades I have been in Pasadena. making-l-a.simplecast.com/episodes/luc...

7 months ago 31 3 0 1

Only the Rialto events are aftershocks to the July 31 M4.3. The Lytle Creek events are near the San Andreas but not necessarily on it. We often see small events around the San Andreas but some analyses suggest they are on small faults not the main surface that will move in the big quakes.

8 months ago 48 8 1 0
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In the last 24 hours, we have seen several M3s in 3 locations. The events near Ontario are at the western end of the Fontana trend. The Lytle Creek events are near the San Andreas & the Rialto events are where the Fontana trend intersects the San Andreas. Last week's M4.3 was at the Rialto location

8 months ago 76 16 3 0
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The New York - Philadelphia - Wilmington urban corridor has felt small earthquakes roughly every 2-3 years. Moderately damaging earthquakes strike somewhere in the urban corridor roughly twice a century. So infrequent but not weird

8 months ago 66 15 0 0
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On the M4.3 on the Fontana trend

8 months ago 79 9 3 0

Looks like a small swarm in the Fontana trend. This M4.2 had a few foreshcoks including a M3.0. The Fontana trend is a NE-striking lineation of earthquakes under the sediments of the San Bernardino Vslley. We believe it is one of the left-lateral striking faults that are south of the San Gabriels.

8 months ago 80 20 3 1

I’m seeing lots of questions about whether the rate of great earthquakes is changing or whether climate change affects earthquakes. The answer is no. The long term rate of these big events is about 1/decade. But the distribution is random. The last one was 2011 in Japan

8 months ago 70 18 1 0