I am riding the coast in the ocean when the big one hits, all the while with a burger in my hand. FTW
pretty interesting, anybody remember if the seal lions left in 89? just found this article... http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 9201.story
The earthquake theory about the sea lions makes no sense. It's all about the food. That's part of why they showed up at Pier 39 in the first place. There have always been sea lions along the wharf, as members of the SF Dolphins (a Bay swimming club located near Aquatic Park) can attest, but not in as a large herd per se until the 1980s, at least since the wharf was developed. Too bad the Ohlone aren't around to tell us how things were pre-Gold Rush. Allegedly the first relatively small batch of sea lions had abandoned "seal rock" out by the Cliff House when they figured out that some of their kin were being "fed" by the tourists at the Wharf. Pier 39 management placed several more platforms in the water for them, as they'd become part of the attraction, and accordingly, even more showed up to camp out. So far as I'm aware, sea lions have never been considered indicators of an oncoming quake. Most evidence of animals behaving in an agitated manner prior to a quake are anecdotal accounts of land-based mammalian behavior, usually dogs, cats, and horses. It's known that cetaceans are very sensitive to subterranean and sub-oceanic noises, but I know of no accounts of their behavior changing prior to an earthquake (not that I've searched too hard.) Given that the area that the sea lions migrated to is at risk for huge earthquakes and worse (mega volcanic activity) I can't see how it makes sense that they would have moved to an area that is also at risk. Also, there have been countless earthquakes in the past twenty years that were of equal or greater strength than the two in the Milpitas area that came shortly after the media took note of the sea lion migration, so why didn't they pack up and leave before? It's gotta be food, or something other than earthquake prescience. It's amazing how urban myth memes take on a self-validating life of their own sometimes, but even a person with no expertise in marine biology can think this thing through and see how absurd it is. The Oregon bounty-of-anchovies theory makes a lot more sense.
Agree. Especially, since the 6.5 tremor's epicenter was ~30 mi off the coast, under the ocean floor. If that kinda crap bothered any creature making their living in the water, they would've evolved to live on land, acquire opposable thumbs, build unsafe edifices and have those collapse on their fancy, land-crawling asses.. Like this? http://bit.ly/8Ix5U5 Found through Digg Funny thing though, the dog didn't seem that prescient time-wise and, as noted in the comments there, the fat guy was just as seemingly fast to react as the dog. Although, the dog ran towards where the dude came from, so perhaps he went to get him first... man's best friend and all that.
Somehow scatological humor doesn't come across as well as one would expect.. And of course, I didn't mean to imply that any such quake is not dangerous.
Fuck! HUUGE {7.0} quake off of Haiti, 20 min ago: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 012001.php I shall just shut the fuck up from now, ok?
