Old Blog Posts

All Schattenreich series books are included in the sale, 25% off today ONLY: Primary FaultShaky GroundDouble CoupleShadow Zone

I’ve decided to lighten things up a little. The background picture is from Brittany, some form of beach plant caught in morning dew. I’d appreciate any feedback you’d care to share about the design. And a few garden pictures, now that summer has arrived. The writer’s life with roses Clematis, The President, with late blooming aquilegia Bronze fennel, a welcome stray A shy foxglove, just lifting its head Foxglove with a reluctant cucumber Cinnamon fern in all its glory Rose de Rescht, stay away from those thorns Rhubarb by the compost pots on the patio with beach stones from Brittany… Read More

Taking a break from the wonders of Italy for a few days, a couple of things to report and a favor to ask. (1) Wings of the Guardian and (2) Eye of the Sphinx are FREE on Kindle through Saturday, 30 May 2015. All Kindle outlets. I’ve only put in the links for a few below. ASIN B00U60E1PY ASIN B00U5ZY5E2 DE (1) (2) CA (1) (2) AU (1) (2) IN (1) (2) UK (1) (2) And I’m also proud to announce that there are print versions of both stories (and as part of the Kindle Matchbook program including a free… Read More

Our visit to the villages of Paganica and Onna, Italy constituted a form of ‘ground truth’. The phrase used in this sense means walking the streets and making an (albeit, informal rather than scientific) photographic catalog of the damaged buildings. It was a sobering learning experience for me. While still a doctoral student, I had the opportunity to do this just once before, a couple of months after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (Mw 6.9) that flattened a portion of the Nimitz Freeway and was responsible for triggering mass wasting events and resulted in liquefaction in, among other places, the… Read More

Our first destination on our trip through Italy was Pescina.The main reason for our trip to participate in the Sixth INQUA Workshop on Active Tectonics, Paleoseismology, and Archeoseismology with the theme of Quaternary Geology and Paleoseismology in the Fucino and L’Aquila Basins. Both the Fucino and L’Aquila basins are the source of devastating earthquakes with faults running parallel along the length of both basins and in the bordering Abruzzo-Appenine mountain range. The meeting commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Avezzano earthquake was located in Pescina, one of several cities destroyed by the 1915 earthquake (est. magnitude of between 6.8 and… Read More