Harold Tobin

Mount Rainier is not ready to erupt: Earthquake experts debunk report of increased seismic activity Scientists at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network might blow their stacks over having to respond to a rumor about increased tremor activity at the Washington state volcano.

Here’s the article: www.geekwire.com/2025/mount-r...

I love this. @pnsn1.bsky.social

Here’s a deep cut: Harold and Maude

Some false reports are circulating that Mt. Rainier is suddenly showing seismic tremor activity — this is not true. The signal being referenced is actually radio interference, most likely due to rime ice buildup on the antenna of one of our seismic stations.

Ugh, sorry about that.

This lab is key for tracking deadly waves. Its sensors are about to go offline. After NOAA cut funding to the lab that’s been monitoring seismic activity for more than 25 years, nine stations tracking tsunami-causing earthquakes for the agency will go offline by the end of the mo...

NOAA cut funding for critical parts of the tsunami and earthquake detection system in Alaska, primarily in the Aleutians. I spoke to Wash Post about negative impacts. But, hey, what are the chances of a deadly tsunami being triggered in Alaska? (Gift article, not behind paywall) ⚒️ wapo.st/4qKvavQ

This visualization of Japan’s M6.8 yesterday is phenomenal. Offshore S-net detected it and issued earthquake alert before any land station detection. Numbered circles show JMA intensity (not same as MMI). Offshore is where we need to be in Cascadia as well.

Today's Japan M6.8 is in an interesting spot: the zone of "missing" slip just north of the very large shallow rupture in the 2011 M9.

U.S. tsunami warning system, reeling from funding and staffing cuts, is dealt another blow Seismic monitoring stations in Alaska are closing after a denied federal grant, risking delayed tsunami warnings for people living on the West Coast.

Quoted supporting our counterparts and friends at the Alaska Earthquake Center. The cost of the U.S. tsunami warning and mitigation effort is really a pittance. None of it has ever been adequately funded in any administration, and now things are worse. ⚒️ www.nbcnews.com/science/tsun...

In a closed space behind the scenes, not too far from the 3rd base line.

Geno Suarez hits a Grand Slam to put the Mariners up 6-2 and seal Game 5 of the ALCS!

"The City is Shaking!"

#SeizeTheMoment

Those Canadian home runs don’t make much of a signal here for some reason 🧐

bsky.app/profile/pnsn...

Seismogram showing ground motion at T-Mobile Park for game-winning single by Seattle Mariner Jorge Polanco, JP Crawford scores!

MLB poster for PostSEAson 2025 that reads Seis the Moment with a small seismogram between the Seis and the The. Has website for PNSN seismograms of the game. mariners.pnsn.org

You feel that Seattle?! Check out that Polanco P-Wave! Polanco Game Winning Single, Crawford Scores, MARINERS WIN!! @Mariners are Toronto Bound! @Tmobilepark @FoxSports
#SeisTheMoment #SeizeTheMoment

Image with Dubs the Husky and PNSN Team Member doing a drop cover and hold on drill. Text about ShakeOut noting date (October 16, 2025) and link (shakeout.org). Bottom part of image shows cartoon Drop, Cover, Hold On panels.

Dubs is ready to #ShakeOut... Are you?
We’re just ONE WEEK away from the Great ShakeOut earthquake drill on October 16! Join Dubs in practicing Drop, Cover, and Hold On.
Register your participation and explore all the ways you can boost awareness for this event at shakeout.org.

Interesting study! And this animation blending the model with the observed SWOT image is gorgeous.

Correction: near Tosa, not Kure.

These communities’ entire way of life is based on fishing and having the harbor. Surrounding terrain is very steep and rugged except at the river mouths. Meanwhile, the entire nation is subject to earthquake damage. So just leaving is not as strategic as it sounds…

Yes! In the 2011 tsunami in Japan, the numerous designated tsunami-evacuation buildings saved many thousands of lives. They didn’t have special purpose towers there, as far as I know. But southern Japan has many, especially in places like Kure without tall buildings, as seen in my pics.

Vertical evacuation structure in Kure, where 400 people can get to 28 meters above sea level.

View from the tower deck, overlooking the town which could all flood in the next tsunami.

View of the town’s other tower, from the first one.

In Kochi city, all of downtown would flood. Many regular buildings are fortified and marked as escape structures.

Tsunami evacuation systems in Kochi City and Kure town, Shikoku Island. The 1946 Nankai Trough earthquake and tsunami swept ashore here, flooding all these areas - only the most recent of many over the past ~1300 years. The vertical evac towers are really impressive.

Two geologists pointing out enormous coastal outcrops of steeply-dipping ribbon chert.

Closer view of the folded and steeply dipping cherts, with two geologists standing on outcrop.

Down-looking view of block-in-matrix melange of scaly mudstones with sandstone blocks.

Outcrop photo of brittle fault rocks at the top of the Yokonami melange, with pencil for scale. This has been interpreted as a fossil plate boundary fault zone.

Yokonami melange, a paleo-megathrust, and so, so much chert, near Kure, Shikoku Island, Japan

Yes, we do like them - very much.

We spent 15 days up there, and saw no sign of other people. Pretty amazing, when we were in the heart of a well-known national park and less than 70 miles from UW campus! But a hard place to get to: we needed helicopter support to do this work.

Two geologists with hiking gear standing at an overlook, looking at a rocky valley and in the distance, the Geri-freki glacier and surrounding peaks. In Olympic National Park.

Close-up photo of a rock outcrop with a compass, showing very well-developed block-in-matrix, melange fabric, including lenses of sandstone in a finer matrix.

Geologists stadning on a large outcrop of planar veins cutting through foliated fault rock, with the enormous, partially snow-covered SW face of Mt. Tom in the distance.

View of the stupendous and rarely-seen southwest face of Mt. Olympus. There is more than 4000 feet of relief in this image, and multiple cirque glaciers. The disrupted and broken 'ghost stratigraphy' of (metamorphosed) sandstone and mudstone is evident.

We recently spent 2 weeks doing field work in a remote part of Olympic National Park, studying what we think is another part of the 'fossil' subduction plate boundary fault: a paleo-megathrust. The terrain was rugged and challenging, and the rocks were rewarding. Here's a taste. ⚒️

And Steve Malone is still analyzing volcanic earthquakes at PNSN in 2025!

Russian volcano erupts days after monster quake shakes region The volcano may have been primed to erupt before the magnitude 8.8 quake pushed it over the edge.

This eruption is an interesting … coincidence?? Seismically triggered eruptions are not really my specialty, but I answered the phone on Sunday morning when @npr.org’s @gbrumfiel.bsky.social called, so here you go: Russian volcano erupts days after monster quake shakes

www.npr.org/2025/08/03/n...

Their website says “Note that while this model output represents the latest research modeling at NCTR, the operational forecast is performed at NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs) using the same technology.”

Yes, I did kind of blend them to simplify the story. I understood from the website that they both use the exact same method to hand off the deep water model to the inundation one so I thought it was a minor point - but maybe not!

They ran these models very early in the hours of the tsunami's trip across the ocean, fueling the accurate and timely warnings. (6/6)

They then could hand off that open ocean tsunami model to coastal inundation models that were pre-computed. Here are some examples from Haleiwa, HI and Crescent City, CA. Looks like they did very well with both timing and amplitude! (5/6)