There was a mass-emailing from UCSB just now that included:

" At approx 10 am this morning we believe an off-shore gas plume of a
>> significant size passed through the campus with the prevailing winds."

Apparently, officials set off fire alarms and evacuated building. This made no sense whatsoever, if it was coming from offshore. I emailed them back explaining why.

If there was actually some large gas release, it could be of interest for quakes (although probably not). There are very large natural oil and gas seeps about 1 km SW of UCSB (maybe 2 km). If the wind is light from the S or SW, the petroleum odor is very strong.
Chris (in Santa Cruz California)