I am at a hotel in Palm Springs, after the Southern California Earthquake Center annual meeting. Since I have not been funded by SCEC in a couple of years, I put up a poster on Haiti (OK, was not for that reason). I saw John Vidale, and am happy to report that is eyebrows have grown back after the TV network shaved them for his TV interview (in 2004?). I saw John but did not talk to him, because each time he was talking to some seismological legend....Hiroo Kanimori then Jim Rice.

Glen, sorry, I'll hook up with you for a hike or field geology or whatever one of these days, but I need to head home for various reasons including work.

Kanamori gave a 1 hour special talk on the 1960 M9.5+ Chile earthquake vs the 2010 M8.8 Chile quake (and a little bit on a big 1957 quake; I think Mongolia or something. He was showing all kinds of wiggles from a strain meter in Lake Isabella California that recorded extremely long period waves. He just could not make sense of the recording of the 1960 earthquake without it being half strike-slip at long periods. This seemed very odd, but indeed the plate motion is somewhat oblique to the trench. He concludes that there was a slow deep oblique slip earthquake on the subduction zone deeper than the fast high-period quake; I forget if it also slightly (seconds?) preceded the big quake or was at the same time. It would have taken several earthquake cycles to build up that much strike-slip, so there were a bunch of great subduction quakes, presumably piddling little M8s or 8.5s, before the deep part of the 1960 quake caught up all the accumulated strike-slip strain, setting of a sort of GREAT quake (super quake?).

So, the only slides were of wiggles, and I am not a seismologist, but it was still an interesting talk.

Maybe more on the meeting later if I am motivated to post.
Chris