I'm a little surprised that someone (Dennis for example) has not brought up the stolen climate change emails. They have become a really big deal, even if they should not be. The ones they keep reporting over and over do not look like much except the one about "the Nature trick", but even that one is a unclear as to what they did. I have not seen others, but have heard that they show this set of scientists to be petty/vindictive or some such thing. Well, that probably exists, but in all fields.

Now when I am sending emails I wonder how they would look out of context. For example, in Santa Barbara Channel the last week I have been putting in what I call "fake wells" the last week. These are for a velocity model. They are time-depth charts for conversion of digital maps of dated stratigraphy, and they are adjusted or shifted from actual wells with velocity surveys. And, yes,the main purpose of this project is past climate changes, useful for predicting future ones. Our data and past work in Santa Barbara basin show some of the best evidence for sudden climate change.

Having this precisely-dated stratigraphy back to 700,000 years and such a large amount of seismic reflection data also allows a lot of detail on the activity through time on the faults and folds out there (Oak Ridge fault, Pitas Point-North Channel). The Pitas Point-North Channel-Red Mountain fault system dips beneath the south coast: Carpinteria to Santa Barbara to Goleta-UCSB, Santa Barbara and UCSB are in a really bad spot for thrust earthquakes on these faults. In 1978 a M5.5(?) did a lot of damage on campus; it knocked over shelves in the library, which are now bolted together. A large quake in 1925 killed a dozen people in Santa Barbara and caused collapses on Lower State Street.

Chris