Update from The Lake

MOH and I are back in the field at our little house after a three-day interlude away from the Nevada outback, which included a visit to the lake and a two-night stopover in Reno. Our update from the lake is that there is significantly more snow there than at our little house in the Nevada outback - significantly more snow than we've seen at the lake in a number of years. Supposedly we are in the midst of a La Nina, although the winter overall reminds me of the 1982-83 winter, during which one of the largest snowfalls in the Sierra Nevada was caused by an El Nino. It was a very good year to learn how to downhill ski, and so I did. [I mean, it just reminds me of that winter; doesn't mean I'm saying we're not in the middle of a La Nina!]

On the way back, we drove through miles of high snow berms showing the depositional history of the snow and a few disconformities. Correlation between "outcrops" seemed good, except where local slumping and man-made disturbances had occurred.

While gone, we missed the exciting event of a large earthquake nears Wells, NV, which has been thoroughly discussed here and here and here. We were in Reno at the time - asleep, probably - and didn't feel a thing. Possibly the earthquake waves propogated north and south, parallel to the grain of the Basin and Range more easily than they propogated east and west, against the grain. That's only a theory, mind you, with me trying to explain why there are reports of the earthquake being felt as far south as southern California, and not so many reports from Reno and Sparks, NV.