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Brian Olson 🥥🌴🗳️ @mrbrianolson

California geologist, earthquake hazard scientist, Christian, frustrated Angels fan, and Oxford comma guy. Peace & Humpty-ness Forever! #SciComm (he/him)

Joined September 2009
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Hi, I’m Brian Olson—geologist, earthquake scientist, & SoCal resident. With 25 years working in engineering geology, I tackle hazards like liquefaction, landslides, & active faults. Expect posts on quakes, geology, travel, Disneyland, & how the Angels break my heart. 🌍🏰⚾
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DAS Bump! My summary of this morning’s session: “Forecasting Earthquakes with Continuous Data: From Lab to Field”. Sounds like a SCEC German punk band. #scecmeet @SCEC
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Tom Rockwell (Distinguished Lecture) kicking off the 2025 SCEC meeting! Small offset per event (smaller magnitude) produces narrower damage zone in nearby rocks. Serves as a proxy for avg. magnitude per rupture event. #scecmeet #scec2025 @SCEC
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Opening presentation of this year’s SCEC annual meeting in Palm Springs! It seems SCEC is a “large Enterprise” working to develop & share cutting-edge earthquake system science to enhance California’s resilience & to educate and inspire future scientists. #scecmeet #SCEC2025
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The “less than 2%” stat is technically true only under a narrow “national-average” framing that obscures how common slavery was where it existed. Slavery wasn’t the only injustice against Black Americans in US history, and accountability extends far beyond slaveowners.
Jillian Michaels
@JillianMichaels
14 Aug 2025
I'm denigrating all of humanity by pointing out that 98% of American white people in 1860 didn't perpetrate slavery... and in fact many white Americans died to end it? 🤔
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This ignores: slavery was legal in ALL 13 original colonies until the early 1800s; “households” owned slaves, only counting male slaveowners is misleading; ignores that the US economic system overwhelmingly provided whites the opportunity to build enough wealth to own slaves.
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While slavery was mostly in the South by 1860, the North was not morally separate from it; people can live w/in & uphold unjust systems w/o being individually cruel/violent; After slavery ended, other injustices followed. Slavery began a long pattern of white oppression of Blacks
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Take it easy now! What is going on here? Two new M3.5s in Ontario (SW of the Rialto sequence) and then a M3.7 to the north near the San Andreas?? Let’s just turn the heat down a little, mkay? #earthquake
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I was too sleepy last night to check that M3.7 near the San Andreas, but it shows a reverse faulting focal mechanism. Not the SAF, probably associated with the Cleghorn Fault (part of the North Frontal Fault System) that helps squeeze up the San Bernardino Mountains. #earthquake
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Good lord...
Acyn
@Acyn
6 Aug 2025
CNN reporting Trump administration officials are going to meet tomorrow to discuss their handling of the Epstein cases: Sources say that there have been discussions about what Blanche's next step could be, including… doing an interview with someone like Joe Rogan
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ANNNNNDDDD we're BACK! The Rialto/Fontana earthquake sequence continues with a M3.5 aftershock this afternoon from Thursday's M4.3 quake. Overall, it still looks like it's on a fault related to the San Jacinto Fault zone (NW-trending). #earthquake
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Looking at the @SCEC Community Fault Model, these quakes look like they are along the Lytle Creek strand of the San Jacinto Fault. (I should have checked this map earlier.) #earthquake
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At first, I thought last week’s M4.3 earthquake near Rialto was linked to the NE-trending Fontana Seismic Lineament. But the aftershocks tell a different story. They outline a NW-trending fault, roughly parallel to the San Jacinto Fault. #earthquake
Map of San Bernardino County showing earthquake epicenters from a recent M4.3 near Rialto. Yellow and orange dots mark aftershocks, forming a northwest-trending cluster subparallel to the San Jacinto Fault.

ALT Map of San Bernardino County showing earthquake epicenters from a recent M4.3 near Rialto. Yellow and orange dots mark aftershocks, forming a northwest-trending cluster subparallel to the San Jacinto Fault.

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Tsunami waves still ringing around the Pacific. Crescent City tidal guage is still showing 6-8-foot wave heights. Port San Luis was seeing similar waves, but now they're in the 3-4 range. I would expect this to continue today, w/the possibility of a rogue surge in there. #tsunami
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First tsunami waves are arriving on the east side of Kauai (Hawaii) at the Nawiliwili tide guage. #tsunami
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WOW! Initial wave height in Hilo Bay is over 8-feet high! Hilo is no stranger to tsunami damage and seems to be the highest wave heights so far for any area of Hawaii. #tsunami
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Hearing reports of a coastal parking lot flooded under a foot of water. Makes sense given wave height of almost 10 FEET recorded in the first few minutes on the tide guage. Expect fluctuating waves and strong, unpredictable currents in bays and harbors for at least several hours.
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