Seal The San Andreas Fault Possible

The other night I saw two coyote pups in a residential area in Southern California. Is this normal?

Actually, it’s quite normal to see coyotes, raccoons, possums, skunks, and sometimes even a bear in LA neighborhoods. I live in the San Fernando Valley, sandwiched between the San Gabriel Mountains to the north and the Santa Monica Mountains to the south.As you can see in the following pictures and video which were taken in my backyard, I sometimes have these visitors.However, the most interesting visitor I’ve had was last summer on Friday, July 13 at about 2 AM. We were awakened by a noise outside our bedroom window, but upon looking outside, we saw nothing. The next morning, I found that the privacy trellis on the top of my block wall was broken in two places. I couldn’t figure out what had done it.Five days later, on Tuesday, July 17, my daughter called to tell me to stay in the house, because there was a bear roaming in my area. It then dawned on me what had happened and since I have video cameras placed around my house, I did a search and this is what I found.From early Friday morning until Tuesday afternoon, this bear was roaming my neighborhood, before it was finally caught about 2.5 miles from my house.https://ktla.com/2018/07/17/lapd...So, is it normal for wild animals to roam LA neighborhoods? I would say it is!

What are some particularly unique places to visit at Point Reyes?

In general, not many. It depends how wide afield you call Pt. Reyes (the geographic point to around the neighborhood of Pt. Reyes Station (town). Most of the land around Pt. Reyes is privately held and off limits to casual trespass. For that reason, a car is a rather limiting tool. In some instances a boat is more handy.1) Pt Reyes itself: often foggy, cold, and windy.  Best to visit on a clear day when the Farallon Islands are visible. This is not trivial Bay sailing here.2) The Marconi Center just N of Pt Reyes Station.3) The National Seashore visitor center will point to various sea shore features, some requiring some walking. Some nice coast line to the N is occasionally above water.4) The San Andreas fault and Tomales Bay (including Hog Island) should be appreciated. Maps and globals useful.5) Oyster farms. Aquaculture will be an even more important food source in the future. Useful to like seafood.6) Drake's Bay: the monument to his landing is not easily accessible by foot and must be approached with careful consideration of tides.7) Adding distance away from Pt Reyes brings up issues like is Bolinas part of Pt Reyes (same tectonic plate after all) or Bodega Bay (marine boundaries, when Hitchcock's The Birds was filmed), what about Two Rock (WWII significance), etc. You will have to place a fuzzy limit some where, find it for yourself.

How is underground infrastructure protected from earthquakes?

There are several factors to consider here:Near surface soils modify the incoming ground motion often resulting in amplification at the ground surface.Seismic waves are reflected at the ground surface resulting in constructive interference and higher ground shaking at the ground surface.Structures respond due to resonance resulting in amplification as we go higher in the structure.So structures below ground, like subway tunnels, often have less intense ground shaking than structures at the ground surface.  They are also restrained by the surrounding soil so they do not resonante as above ground structures.  So in general the loading is a lot less.The design criteria for underground structures is the relative movement between the structure and the soil.  The bigger the difference in stiffness between the soil and the structure the more loading the structure will be subjected to.  This is called soil structure interaction.  In most cases the underground structure is designed based on some estimated shear displacement (relative movement between the top and bottom of the structure) to deal with the earthquake motions.A good example of the difference between below and above ground shaking was when the bullet train was in a tunnel during the 2004 earthquake https://www.eeri.org/lfe/pdf/jap...  .  The ground shaking was small in the tunnel but increased once the train came out of the tunnel and above the ground surface resulting in among other things derailment.

What are some little known scenic spots in California?

The 5th (or was it 6th) highest water fall in CA is Feather Falls. It’s a hike from near Lake Oroville. The Feather River project was the last really big, really controversial water project. CA 70 drives through. It signaled the end of easy dams. The evaporation from the large surface area started to work against dams.Things are little known now, because they are far away from urban areas.At these distances it’s a matter of whether something scenic is really different from a closer scenic area.Helps to have a plane, too.If you want remote, try Fort Bidwell, CA. It did recently once have one small mass killing by a female tribe member. It’s as far as you can get from urban areas. Have yet to get there myself, but I have been to a couple of towns near by.Many other small nice valleys. We were talking about Covello at lunch (we get invited to shoot cannons near there). And other interesting small remote nice valleys.

What should a person know about living in and around Orange County that may not be obvious to an outsider?

I will try to answer this in as unbiased a fashion as I can muster.  Places I have lived (just for background reference):Rochester, NYLondon EnglandSan Antonio, TXAustin, TXIrvine, CALong Beach, CAI currently own a business in Huntington Beach and spend most of my waking moments there.  I heartily dislike HB.The people I encounter on a daily basis are: impatient, entitled, rude, ignorant and frequently classless.  The view from my office through a mirrored window gives me a front row seat to this fabulousness on a daily basis.  It's not flattering.  (Talking to another HB business owner yesterday, he called them "rednecks".)I LOVE Long Beach.  My neighborhood is very diverse and eclectic and mostly polite and peaceful.LB has a higher crime rate than HB but it's a lot larger with much more diversity.  The difference in housing prices alone prompted my decision to live here instead of Orange County.  At the time we purchased, a similar house/neighborhood in The OC would have cost $50k more.  There are many lovely homes along Ocean Blvd (between Shoreline and Junipero) that I would absolutely look at.But if living near the water is your top priority, I would choose Seal Beach.  It's small, quaint, neighborly, polite and I spend most of my beach-centric time here.  I take all my out of town guests to Seal when The Beach is part of their itinerary.If money is no object and you don't mind fighting for on-street parking, look at Belmont Shores or Naples.  Safe, charming, beautiful architecture, walking distance to water from any point.  These are both in Long Beach.Quiz Question: Which of the three cities I mentioned has both a massive Superfund Site and a documented hate group?Answer: Surf City USA, Huntington Beach.