California

This is interesting since I was just here last week collecting and examining fossils from the Purisima formation as a part of the SF-ROCKS outreach program. A few days later, the San Francisco Chronicle printed an article on the front page of the local section about Capitola, with a picture of an amazing fossil that we found on the beach when our own group was at Capitola a few days earlier. The article says it’s a whale bone, but a friend of the SF-ROCKS director says that it is most likely a sea lion or dolphin.

At Capitola, the hunt for these antiques is easy, although the results aren’t as dramatic as, say, the mammoth discovered recently in the bed of the Guadalupe River in San Jose. Fossilized mollusk shells stick out of many of the rocks and form layers at the base of the cliffs. Boessenecker pointed out exposed sections of whale ribs. Beside one boulder was a line of vertebrae.

EDIT [08/10/2005]: Bobby Boessenecker, who is interviewed in the article, actually emailed and clarified the confusion over that fossil. Evidentially, it *is* a whale bone! Read the comments for more details. Thanks Bobby!

The East Bay Express has posted the second part of their series about the earthquake hazards of the Bay Area. This article deals with the aftermath of a major quake on the Hayward Fault.

If the quake hits during the workweek, hundreds of thousands of East Bay residents will be on their own in San Francisco. The city may emerge relatively unscathed if the quake centers on the Hayward Fault’s northern section, according to computer modeling cited by structural engineer and risk-assessment expert Ronald Hamburger. But if the epicenter is on the southern end of the fault and the shock waves pulsate northward? “A rupture on the southern section, going from south to north, just creams San Francisco,” Hamburger said.

The East Bay Express has posted a great five page article entitled, “It’s not our fault” on the potential earthquake hazards that the San Francisco Bay Area is facing within the next 30 years. With the USGS predicting upwards of a 62% chance of a 6.7 or greater striking the Bay Area within the next 30 years and many structures in the region are still not considered safe in an earthquake, a large tremor has the possibility of being extraordinarily devastating.