Brian Olson 🥥🌴🗳️

Hi, I’m Brian Olson—geologist, earthquake scientist, & SoCal resident. With 25+ years working in engineering geology, I tackle hazards like liquefaction, landslides, & active faults. Expect posts on quakes, geology, travel, Disneyland, & how the Angels break my heart. 🌍🏰⚾

@AustinDave_ Those noticable fissures running parallel to the slope contours on the right side of the frame make me wonder if a landslide was involved in this gas leak.

BREAKING: A massive 36-inch underground natural gas pipeline rupture sent high-pressure gas spewing into the air across the Santa Clarita Valley moments ago, prompting emergency evacuations and shelter-in-place orders in the Castaic area. The rupture was reported shortly before 4:15 p.m. near Ridge Route Road and Pine Crest Drive in Castaic, adjacent to a hillside near a water storage tank. Authorities say a large landslide either caused the pipeline to fail — or was triggered by the rupture itself — as soil shifted beneath the infrastructure. Witnesses described off-camera a deafening roar coming from the hillside as natural gas escaped under extreme pressure, creating a scene that could be heard from miles away. Firefighters with the Los Angeles County Fire Department immediately established a safety perimeter and ordered a shelter-in-place for nearby residents, including homes surrounding Northlake Hills Elementary, due to the risk of ignition and hazardous air conditions. Crews are working to secure the area while utility officials attempt to isolate and shut down the damaged gas line. No injuries were reported as of early evening, but officials warned the situation remains active and dangerous, urging residents to avoid the area and follow all emergency instructions. The cause of the rupture and the extent of infrastructure damage remain under investigation as crews assess the stability of the hillside.

@FirePhotoGirl Potato Canyon Road?

Oak Glen Flooding #cawx #breaking

@AntJKernich Saw that! Did you feel it? Looks like probably the Hayward Fault.

@mrbrianolson 4.6 just now

Earlier this week, the San Andreas Fault popped off a few M3 quakes. Today the Hayward Fault is trying to get some attention with M3.2 and M3.4 earthquakes. Can we just NOT? #earthquake

DAS Bump! My summary of this morning’s session: “Forecasting Earthquakes with Continuous Data: From Lab to Field”. Sounds like a SCEC German punk band. #scecmeet @SCEC

Tom Rockwell (Distinguished Lecture) kicking off the 2025 SCEC meeting! Small offset per event (smaller magnitude) produces narrower damage zone in nearby rocks. Serves as a proxy for avg. magnitude per rupture event. #scecmeet #scec2025 @SCEC

Opening presentation of this year’s SCEC annual meeting in Palm Springs! It seems SCEC is a “large Enterprise” working to develop & share cutting-edge earthquake system science to enhance California’s resilience & to educate and inspire future scientists. #scecmeet #SCEC2025

@JillianMichaels While slavery was mostly in the South by 1860, the North was not morally separate from it; people can live w/in & uphold unjust systems w/o being individually cruel/violent; After slavery ended, other injustices followed. Slavery began a long pattern of white oppression of Blacks

@JillianMichaels This ignores: slavery was legal in ALL 13 original colonies until the early 1800s; “households” owned slaves, only counting male slaveowners is misleading; ignores that the US economic system overwhelmingly provided whites the opportunity to build enough wealth to own slaves.

I'm denigrating all of humanity by pointing out that 98% of American white people in 1860 didn't perpetrate slavery... and in fact many white Americans died to end it? 🤔

While slavery was mostly in the South by 1860, the North was not morally separate from it; people can live w/in & uphold unjust systems w/o being individually cruel/violent; After slavery ended, other injustices followed. Slavery began a long pattern of white oppression of Blacks

This ignores: slavery was legal in ALL 13 original colonies until the early 1800s; “households” owned slaves, only counting male slaveowners is misleading; ignores that the US economic system overwhelmingly provided whites the opportunity to build enough wealth to own slaves.

The “less than 2%” stat is technically true only under a narrow “national-average” framing that obscures how common slavery was where it existed. Slavery wasn’t the only injustice against Black Americans in US history, and accountability extends far beyond slaveowners.

@MarkMittelberg @SoundFaithCo Yet another MANel of apologetics speakers at a conference. Are women not studying apologetics?

Live anywhere near the Midwest USA? I hope you'll join me and an incredible lineup of Christian apologists for the SOUND FAITH conference in Omaha, October 3 & 4!! soundfaithomaha.com @SoundFaithCo

I was too sleepy last night to check that M3.7 near the San Andreas, but it shows a reverse faulting focal mechanism. Not the SAF, probably associated with the Cleghorn Fault (part of the North Frontal Fault System) that helps squeeze up the San Bernardino Mountains. #earthquake

Take it easy now! What is going on here? Two new M3.5s in Ontario (SW of the Rialto sequence) and then a M3.7 to the north near the San Andreas?? Let’s just turn the heat down a little, mkay? #earthquake

Good lord...

Looking at the @SCEC Community Fault Model, these quakes look like they are along the Lytle Creek strand of the San Jacinto Fault. (I should have checked this map earlier.) #earthquake

ANNNNNDDDD we're BACK! The Rialto/Fontana earthquake sequence continues with a M3.5 aftershock this afternoon from Thursday's M4.3 quake. Overall, it still looks like it's on a fault related to the San Jacinto Fault zone (NW-trending). #earthquake

@johnhubbs46 Indeed! There's the San Jacinto Fault to the east, the San Andreas a little farther east, the Fontana trend coming in from the southwest, and the Cucamonga Fault to the west at the base of the mountains. A LOT going on in a small space!

@mrbrianolson Interesting junction of various faults

At first, I thought last week’s M4.3 earthquake near Rialto was linked to the NE-trending Fontana Seismic Lineament. But the aftershocks tell a different story. They outline a NW-trending fault, roughly parallel to the San Jacinto Fault. #earthquake