Santa Margarita Lake Is Back

Today I headed out to the east side of Santa Margarita Lake (a.k.a. Salinas Reservoir) with Mike, my brother by another mother. We both hadn't hiked in too long and needed to get out and start a pattern of weekly hiking. I needed it as part of my decompressing from last week's big teaching experience and to recharge my mental-emotional batteries. Mission accomplished! It was especially satisfying to see how much water was everywhere including all types of watercourses and water catchments. Even parts of the trail we hiked (Blinn Ranch Trail which follows sections of the old road before the dam was filled) were covered in water or showed signs of water recently running over them. There were also washouts and minor landslides/rockfalls. The Salinas River was flowing strong into the back of the lake which is rapidly filling and nearly full. Areas of the back of the lake which had been bone dry for years and looking rather desolate were back under water or water was nearby.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Ominous Resurgence At El Hierro

El Hierro Volcano in the Canary Island is acting up again after several months of relative quietude. As you may recall this blog posted HERE a satellite image of the submarine eruption there early last year. In the past 24-48 hours there has been a dramatic resurgence of seismicity and up to 3 inches of swelling of parts of the volcanic island over the course of the past week. The largest expression of the aforementioned seismicity was a M5.1 earthquake yesterday whose rockfall whose effects are prominently featured in the video clip below. The volcanic alert level has been raised to YELLOW.

Picture of the Day - Utah Land Creep

Apartment building, hillside, retainer wall and parking lot being rifted by a landslide in St. George, UT.

Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)