California Board of Geology Terminated in New Budget Deal

As a result of the new California State Budget, the Geology Board is slated to be terminated.

The termination of the Geology Board and transfer of its authorities to the Board of Professional Engineers and Surveyors is on page 26 of the final State Budget

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/FullBudgetSummary.pdf

This appears to be a significant detriment to the professional practice of geology in the State of California.

According to the Geology Board, they aren’t sure that it’s a done deal yet, and they recommend that you contact your local representatives if you’d like to protest this decision. The Geology Board plans to continue to operate business as usual until they hear otherwise.

California Earthquake Swarm

In the past few days, the Salton Sea area of southern California has been experiencing an earthquake swarm - with a few quakes as large as the mid-4's on the Richter Scale. With this swarm comes an increased probability of a large quake on that section of the San Andreas fault. A large quake in this area could effect Yuma and western Arizona - especially if it ruptured from north to south. The Arizona Geology blog has a good write-up about it.

In other geology news, there is a huge volcanic eruption going on at Redoubt in Alaska. There are good updates at the Eruptions blog and the AVO.