Today in astounding coincidences: Mexico had a nationwide earthquake safety drill today to mark the anniversary of the Sept 19, 2017 M 7.1 quake and the Sept 19, 1985 M 8.0 quake.

An hour after the drill, a M 7.6 quake struck.
mexiconewsdaily.com/news/nationwid… Note: "astounding" in a human perspective doesn't mean anything geophysically strange is up! Mexico is no stranger to large quakes (especially on the subduction zone), and the probability of date coincidences can be surprising, as in the Birthday Problem: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_…

People occasionally DM me the earthquake "prediction" charlatans they stumble upon on social media, and I've seen enough to do a little write-up.

Here it is: my Taxonomy of Quake Quacks!

🧵 Before we get started with the categories, a reminder: no one can meaningfully predict earthquakes before they happen. Everyone (scientists especially!) would love if useful, better-than-random prediction existed, but nothing yet has stood up to scientific scrutiny.

#MetGala2021 looks as minerals:

Amanda Gorman - Azurite Serena Williams - Rhodochrosite, Quartz, Hubnerite

How do earthquake “prediction” con artists make it LOOK like they have a good track record, even though they’re totally unscientific hoaxters?

Let a seismologist fill you in.

Thread: First, to be abundantly clear: no one can usefully predict earthquakes before they happen. Not you, not your pet, not some guy on the internet. We’d all love if good predictions were possible (seismologists included!), but nothing yet has stood up to scientific rigor.

It’s here: the lockdown seismology paper is out in @ScienceMagazine! Here’s a thread sharing how this paper came to be, an intro to what we found, and a note on why it’s interesting. science.sciencemag.org/content/early/… Back in March, @seismotom posted this figure to @Seismologie_be of ambient seismic noise on a seismometer in Belgium, showing a decrease in noise power when their local lockdown went into effect:

https://twitter.com/Seismologie_be/status/1240952099887865856

Required reading for geoscientists in the U.S. (and recommended reading for anyone who loves the outdoors) relevant to recent events: "Black Faces, White Spaces" by Dr. Carolyn Finney, about the relationships between Black Americans, the outdoors, and environmental organizations. The book discusses the history of Black relationships with the environment, the way that this history informs modern collective memory, Black representation in outdoors-focused media and organizations, and Black action for and exclusion from environmental causes.

I just learned on the @USGS earthquake history page that the largest recorded quake on May 20th was a M7.2 in 1990 in South Sudan. Event page: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ev…

Africa isn't the first to most minds when thinking of quake-prone areas, but it does get some! Short thread: Here's a map of quakes with M>6.0 since 1980 in the @USGS catalog. As you might guess, most large quakes (~130 of the ~150 shown) occur on the major tectonic plate boundaries surrounding the continent.

Several folks have asked me questions about the seismic noise that folks like @seismotom and I have been posting, so here's a little primer thread on what seismic noise is, what's changing with it during COVID-19 shutdowns, and what that all means.

https://twitter.com/celestelabedz/status/1247192796043161606

First off, what's seismic noise?

We all know that the ground can move and shake pretty dramatically during an earthquake, but the ground is actually moving ALL the time! In the times without earthquakes, the motion is way too small for any person to feel, though.

Know a kid who would rather watch #Frozen2 on repeat than do schoolwork?

Well then, buckle up right here for a kid-friendly, activity-filled, Frozen-themed science lesson thread from me, glaciologist Elsa the #SciencePrincess! ❄️👸👩‍🔬 First off, let’s get our Frozen on! Watch the video for Show Yourself, and sing along if you want! 🎶 This is when Elsa goes to a glacier, so this is where we’ll look for some science:

In any kind of crisis, it's important to make sure you're getting information from reliable sources. Lots of folks are talking about where to get good #COVID19 info (e.g. WHO, CDC), but here's a rundown of good resources for earthquakes, like today's #UtahEarthquake: The @USGS is a great place to go for information on recent earthquakes. You can check out an interactive map of recent events and search a huge database of past quakes here: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ma…

To celebrate #PiDay, my housemate and I created thoroughly scientific ratings of different pie emojis on Emojipedia. 🥧 Here we go: Apple: This Apple pie had better be an apple pie, and everyone likes apple pie. Seems basic, but a solid foundation. The subtle steam is a nice touch. 8/10.

I was wandering around on some satellite imagery and stumbled upon something fun: a glacier crossroads with changing flow!

When I zoomed in/out, the imagery it showed me changed between an older data set (left) to a newer data set (right). Check out the shape of the moraines! If you're not as familiar with glaciers, here's more info. Moraines are the dark lines on the surface of the glacier; they're made of rocks and dirt picked up by the glacier, along the edges in this case. That debris is carried by the flow of the ice, tracing out its path.

I checked the @USGS latest earthquakes map today and saw something interesting: an M 5.2 earthquake off the edge of the map! 😮

Let's talk about it: First off, sorry flat earthers; it's not off the edge of the world! This particular map just cuts off 5 degrees from the poles, and this earthquake was located at 85.7 degrees north.

Here's the event page so you can play on the event map: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ev…

The cost of outdoors gear is yet another barrier making it hard for people to enter the geosciences.

Established researchers can write equipment costs into their grants, but students trying to outfit themselves for things like class field trips are left hanging.

https://twitter.com/Formorphology/status/1225193265802043392

It's yet another reason why *requiring* extensive field trips for geoscience degrees is a problem.

Not everyone can afford the gear. Not everyone can drop work/family obligations. Not everyone is able-bodied.

There are tons of geoscience careers that don't require field work.

We're doing #7DaysOfFieldWork? You already know I'm in!

For day one, here's me on the @JuneauIcefield in 2017. Cross-country skiing is one of the more efficient methods of glacier locomotion, and sleds are a great way to transport seismometers for deployment and pickup! @JuneauIcefield Day two of #7DaysOfFieldWork!

Here's a tiny moulin on Taku glacier. Moulins are vertical shafts in glaciers that can fill with water and drain into a glacier's internal hydrology. We skied by this one several times over a week last summer; the water level changed each time!

If you're going to call every new person of color or white woman a "diversity hire" then you also have to call every new white man a "privilege hire". Don't blame me, those are just the rules. I've seen a little discussion about this tweet, so here's an expansion. This is in reference to a garbage heap of a dude that a friend told me about. They're both in a university physics dept, a field with a long history of issues in equity and inclusion across gender and race.

A bit before midnight last night, the LA area got a little shake!

When an #earthquake happens, you can always get information about it from the @USGS, including cool visualizations like this ShakeMap. Let's talk about those resources, using this event as an example... Any time you want to check out recent quakes, you can go to: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ma…

It's an explorable map of the latest quakes around the world! You can see that LA isn't the only place that's had a little shaking in the past 24 hours.

Since it's #AGU19 soon, here's a conference reminder: using the word "sexy" to describe any aspect of anyone's research (even your own) makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable and creeped out, even if you don't intend any harm. There's tons of other words you can use (like "intriguing" or "exciting") that get your point across just as well (or probably even better) without the unpleasantness. If you're struggling, find a thesaurus.

My latest nonsense helped me pass 5000 followers, so allow me to re-introduce myself & hype some coolness:

I'm a PhD student at @Caltech, where I research seismic signals naturally created by glaciers. I love sharing science with the world & making science more inclusive! If you want to learn more about what I do, I recently sat down with @SciWithFriends to chat about researching cryoseismology, living on ice, growing up in a museum, going viral online, and shaking up our picture of what a scientist looks like. Links here:

https://twitter.com/celestelabedz/status/1192233393938817024

Hello friends, today I will be using my expertise as a seismologist to tell you how to make an earthquake early warning system out of cats.

Thread: Myths about animals predicting earthquakes have been around for a long time. Scientific research shows NO evidence that anyone (human or animal) can reliably predict earthquakes BEFORE they happen. Once a quake has already started, though, animals have an edge.

Fun fact: Seismometers don't ONLY detect earthquakes; they sense motion from any source! This is one of our live station feeds this morning, showing 48 hrs of data. See how the squiggles are noisy during the day, and quiet at night? That's from human activity, like cars driving! In fact, it's really awesome that seismometers can detect things other than earthquakes! There's a lot of interesting non-earthquake phenomena that can be investigated by their seismic signals, like rivers, landslides, volcanoes, storms, glaciers (what I research!), and more.