LAKEPORT, Calif. – Authorities are investigating what led to a solo-vehicle wreck on Friday that killed a Lakeport man.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office did not release the name of the 65-year-old man in its report on the crash, pending notification of family.
The CHP said the crash occurred at 12:35 p.m. Friday.
The driver was in his 1992 Dodge Ram 3500 pickup, traveling northbound on Waldo Lane north of Soda Bay Road, at between 15 and 20 miles per hour, the CHP said.
For unknown reasons, the man allowed his pickup to leave the roadway. The CHP said the pickup hit a fence and a coop before coming to a stop.
A nearby individual heard the collision and called 911 to report the incident, the CHP said.
The CHP said emergency responders arrived on scene and found the driver unresponsive.
The man, who was not wearing his seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel, the CHP said.
Neither drugs nor alcohol are suspected as factors in the crash, according to the CHP.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
New time-lapse videos of Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets as seen from space – spanning nearly 50 years – are providing scientists with new insights into how the planet’s frozen regions are changing.
At a media briefing Dec. 9 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, scientists released new time series of images of Alaska, Greenland, and Antarctica using data from satellites including the NASA-U.S. Geological Survey Landsat missions.
One series of images tells illustrates the dramatic changes of Alaska’s glaciers and could warn of future retreat of the Hubbard Glacier.
Over Greenland, different satellite records show a speed-up of glacial retreat starting in 2000, as well as meltwater ponds spreading to higher elevations in the last decade, which could potentially speed up ice flow.
And in Antarctic ice shelves, the view from space could reveal lakes hidden beneath the winter snow.
Using images from the Landsat mission dating back to 1972 and continuing through 2019, glaciologist Mark Fahnestock of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has stitched together six-second time-lapses of every glacier in Alaska and the Yukon.
“We now have this long, detailed record that allows us to look at what’s happened in Alaska,” Fahnestock said. “When you play these movies, you get a sense of how dynamic these systems are and how unsteady the ice flow is.”
The videos clearly illustrate what’s happening to Alaska’s glaciers in a warming climate, he said, and highlight how different glaciers respond in varied ways. Some show surges that pause for a few years, or lakes forming where ice used to be, or even the debris from landslides making its way to the sea. Other glaciers show patterns that give scientists hints of what drives glacier changes.
The Columbia Glacier, for example, was relatively stable when the first Landsat satellite launched 1972. But starting in the mid-1980s, the glacier’s front began retreating rapidly, and by 2019 was 12.4 miles upstream. In comparison, the Hubbard Glacier has advanced 3 miles in the last 48 years. But Fahnestock’s time-lapse ends with a 2019 image that shows a large indentation in the glacier, where ice has broken off.
“That calving embayment is the first sign of weakness from Hubbard Glacier in almost 50 years – it’s been advancing through the historical record,” he said. If such embayments persist in the coming years, it could be a sign that change could be coming to Hubbard, he said: “The satellite images also show that these types of calving embayments were present in the decade before Columbia retreated.”
The Landsat satellites have provided the longest continuous record of Earth from space. The USGS has reprocessed old Landsat images, which allowed Fahnestock to handpick the clearest Landsat scenes for each summer, over each glacier. With software and computing power from Google Earth Engine, he created the series of time-lapse videos.
Scientists are using long-term satellite records to look at Greenland glaciers as well. Michalea King of Ohio State University analyzed data from Landsat missions dating back to 1985 to study more than 200 of Greenland’s large outlet glaciers. She examined how far the glacier fronts have retreated, how fast the ice flows, and how much ice glaciers are losing over this time span.
She found that Greenland’s glaciers retreated an average of about 3 miles between 1985 and 2018 – and that the most rapid retreat occurred between 2000 and 2005. And when she looked at the amount of glacial ice entering the ocean, she found that it was relatively steady for the first 15 years of the record, but then started increasing around 2000.
“These glaciers are calving more ice into the ocean than they were in the past,” King said. “There is a very clear relationship between the retreat and increasing ice mass losses from these glaciers during the 1985-through-present record. "While King is analyzing ice lost from the front of glacier, James Lea of the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom is using satellites data to examine ice melting on top of Greenland’s glaciers and ice sheets, which creates meltwater lakes.
These meltwater lakes can be up to 3 miles across and can drain through the ice in a matter of hours, Lea said, which can impact how fast the ice flows. With the computing power of Google Earth Engine, Lea analyzed images of the Greenland ice sheet from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellites for every day of every melt seasons over last 20 years – more than 18,000 images in all.
“We looked at how many lakes there are per year across the ice sheet and found an increasing trend over the last 20 years: a 27 percent increase in lakes,” Lea said. “We’re also getting more and more lakes at higher elevations – areas that we weren’t expecting to see lakes in until 2050 or 2060.”
When these high-elevation meltwater ponds punch through the ice sheet and drain, it could cause the ice sheet to speed up, he said, thinning the ice and accelerating its demise.
It doesn’t always take decades worth of data to study polar features – sometimes just a year or two will provide insights. The Antarctic ice sheet experiences surface melt, but there are also lakes several meters below the surface, insulated by layers of snow. To see where these subsurface lakes are, Devon Dunmire of the University of Colorado, Boulder, used microwave radar images from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite. Snow and ice are basically invisible to microwave radiation, but liquid water strongly absorbs it.
Dunmire’s new study, presented at the AGU meeting, found lakes dotting the George VI and Wilkins ice shelves near the Antarctic Peninsula – even a few that remained liquid throughout the winter months. These hidden lakes might be more common than scientists had thought, she said, noting that she is continuing to look for similar features across the continent’s ice shelves.
“Not much is known about distribution and quantity of these subsurface lakes, but this water appears to be prevalent on the ice shelf near the Antarctic peninsula,” Dunmire said, “and it’s an important component to understand because meltwater has been shown to destabilize ice shelves.”
If you are one of those people who will settle in this evening with a hot cup of apple cider to watch a holiday movie, you are not alone. Holiday movies have become firmly embedded in Americans’ winter celebrations.
The New York Times reports a massive increase in new holiday movies this year. Disney, Netflix, Lifetime and Hallmark are now in direct competition for viewers’ attention, with both new releases and reruns of the classics.
Holiday movies are so popular not simply because they are “escapes,” as my research on the relation between religion and cinema argues. Rather, these films offer viewers a glimpse into the world as it is could be.
Christmas movies as reflection
This is particularly true with Christmas movies.
In his 2016 book “Christmas as Religion,” the religious studies scholar Christopher Deacy states that Christmas movies act as a “barometer of how we might want to live and how we might see and measure ourselves.”
These movies offer a variety of portraits of everyday life while affirming ethical values and social mores along the way.
The 1946 classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” – about a man who longs to travel but remains stuck in his childhood town – represents visions of a community in which every citizen is a vital component.
Another movie commonly replayed this time of year is 2005’s “The Family Stone” which portrays the clashes of a mostly average family but shows viewers that quarrels can be worked through and harmony is possible.
The 2003 British holiday film “Love Actually,” which follows the lives of eight couples in London, brings to viewers the perennial theme of romance and the trials of relationships.
Movie watching as ritual practice
As holiday movies bring viewers into a fictional world, people are able to work through their own fears and desires about self-worth and relationships. Such movies can provide solace, reaffirmation and sometimes even courage to continue working through difficult situations. The movies offer hope in believing it all might turn out alright in the end.
When people see some part of their own lives unfold on screen, the act of viewing operates in a fashion that’s strikingly similar to how a religious ritual works.
As anthropologist Bobby Alexander explains, rituals are actions that transform people’s everyday lives. Rituals can open up “ordinary life to ultimate reality or some transcendent being or force,” he writes in the collection “Anthropology of Religion.”
For example, for Jews and Christians, ritually observing the Sabbath day by sharing meals with family and not working connects them with the creation of the world. Prayer rituals in the Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions connect those praying with their God, as well as with their fellow believers.
Holiday movies do something similar, except that the “transcendent force” they make viewers feel is not about God or another supreme being. Instead, this force is more secular: It’s the power of family, true love, the meaning of home or the reconciliation of relationships.
Movies create an idealized world
Take the case of the 1942 musical “Holiday Inn.” It was one of the first movies – after the silent era’s various versions of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” – where the plot used Christmas as a backdrop, telling the story of a group of entertainers who have gathered at a country inn.
In reality, it was a deeply secular film about romantic interests, couched in a desire to sing and dance. When it was released, the United States had been fully involved in the World War II for a year and national spirits were not high.
The movie hasn’t endured as a classic. But Bing Crosby’s song “White Christmas,” which appeared in it, quickly became etched in the holiday consciousness of many Americans, and a 1954 film called “White Christmas” became better known.
As historian Penne Restad puts it in her 1995 book “Christmas in America,” Crosby’s crooning offers the “quintessential expression” of the holidays, a world which “has no dark side” – one in which “war is forgotten.”
In subsequent Christmas movies, the main plots have not been set in the context of war, yet there is nonetheless often a battle: that of overcoming a materialistic, gift-buying and gift-giving kind of holiday.
Dr. Seuss’s famously grouchy Grinch thinks he can ruin Christmas by taking all the gifts away. But as the people gather together, giftless, they join hands and sing while the narrator tells viewers, “Christmas came anyway.”
“All’s right with the world”
Though Christmas is a Christian holiday, most holiday films are not religious in the traditional sense. There is hardly ever a mention of Jesus or the biblical setting of his birth.
As media studies scholar John Mundy writes in a 2008 essay, “Christmas and the Movies,” “Hollywood movies continue to construct Christmas as an alternative reality.”
These movies create on-screen worlds that kindle positive emotions while offering a few laughs.
“A Christmas Story,” from 1983, waxes nostalgic for childhood holidays when life seemed simpler and the desire for a Red Ryder air rifle was the most important thing in the world. The plot of 2003’s “Elf” centers on the quest to reunite with a lost father.
In the end, as the narrator says late in “A Christmas Story” – after the family has overcome a serious of risible mishaps, the presents have been unwrapped and they’ve gathered for Christmas goose – these are times when “all’s right with the world.”
COBB, Calif. – The mountains of Lake County are many and varied, situated as we are here in this land of contrasts.
Cobb Mountain is located at a lofty 4,720 feet, making it the highest in the Mayacamas mountain range.
According to the Lake County Historical Society's Pomo Bulletin (now named Konocti Chronicles), the mountain was named for John Cobb, who hailed from Henry County, Kentucky.
Cobb, born on May 19, 1814, arrived in the Cobb Valley in the month of October in 1853. Prior to arriving in the Cobb area, which was then part of Napa County, he was a river boater and farmer in and around Kentucky.
His first wife and both of his children passed away before 1848 was over. Cobb then married Esther E. Deming from Ohio and they raised six children together.
The great West was calling him, so, along with his wife and one of his children they set off for California in the spring of 1850.
After stopping over in several places, they finally arrived in California in July of 1851. Cobb was voted in as assessor of Napa County in 1854. After he resided in what we now call Cobb Valley for around five years, he moved down to the Middletown area, in the Callayomi Valley where he farmed.
When Lake County was divided from Napa County, Cobb worked the Callayomi and Guenoc Land Grants for Robert Waterman.
At about that same time Cobb moved to the Stone House in what is now Hidden Valley, where he farmed, as well as leased some of the lands to settlers.
Cobb moved around throughout the years, but ended up residing in Little High Valley at the Lea Neu Ranch.
He died Nov. 13, 1893, and rests forever at the Lower Lake Cemetery.
Geographically speaking, Cobb Mountain's area encompasses about 74 square miles of mixed and pine forests, oak woodlands as well as chaparral.
Geologically, Cobb resides in the Franciscan assemblage with its mish-mash of sandstone, chert, shale, serpentinite and greenstone rock.
Cobb Mountain possesses peaks which are volcanic in nature, such as Mount Hannah at 3,978 feet in elevation, Boggs Mountain at 3,720 feet and Seigler Mountain at 3,692 feet. The relatively nearby Mount Konocti is 4,299 feet high.
Cobb Mountain dresses up in snow a few times a year, matching some of the other tall peaks in Lake County, such as Mount Saint Helena and Snow Mountain.
Most of Cobb Mountain resides in the Clear Lake and Cache Creek watersheds. Much of the mountain's melt waters and creeks at its eastern side create the headwaters of Putah Creek, which flows on into the Sacramento River, then into the San Francisco Bay, all the way to the great Pacific Ocean.
At its southwest section Cobb Mountain's flow runs into Cobb Creek, and next pours into Big Sulphur Creek to the Russian River and again into the Pacific.
Along Cobb's northwest the moisture is diverted into Alder Creek, on into Kelsey Creek, Clear Lake to Cache Creek to the Sacramento River.
From south county's Middletown looking west it is easy to see that Cobb Mountain stretches out to the world famous Geysers Geothermal Field.
Some of Cobb Mountain's other claims to fame have been its resorts and small communities of Hobergs, Cobb, Loch Lomond and Whispering Pines.
Other distinctions it held was its timber lands, as well as its refreshing spring waters belonging to Cobb Mountain Spring Water and bottled as Mayacamas Mountain Spring Water.
Although the nightmare 2015 Valley fire devastated much of Cobb Mountain, the area still remains a crest of beauty with its abundant wildlife in the mountain's riparian and wetland communities, such as blacktail deer, coyote, black tailed jackrabbit, western grey squirrel, black bear and even mountain lions.
Cobb possesses unique vernal pools which host rare or endangered plant species like orcuttia grass, Boggs Lake hedge-hyssop and delicate dimorphic snapdragons.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon said he plans to seek a second term on the Lake County Board of Supervisors.
Last week, the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office reported that Simon’s name was on the list of those who had filed to run for local offices, as Lake County News has reported.
Simon is being challenged by Julia Mary Bono, a businesswoman, minister and scientist.
“It has been a privilege to serve my first term as District 1 supervisor, and thanks to the work of so many, our efforts have brought us to a pivotal point in fire recovery, protection of Clear Lake and our remarkable environment, supporting and expanding housing opportunities, and partnering with communities, agriculture and the private sector to determine the economic direction and future of our region,” Simon said.
“In addition to acting on my pledge to be accessible to the people of District 1 by creating regular local office hours, attending community meetings and events, and coaching high school football, I am proud to be the governor’s appointee to the State Board of Fire Services – the only county supervisor out of California’s 58 counties to serve on the board. I also now advocate for District 1 and county interests as a member of numerous state and regional commissions and organizations,” he said.
Simon added, “As supervisor, my focus will always be on serving local interests and strengthening our sense of community. It is our common welfare that energizes and motivates me to seek re-election – and to pledge a lifetime of service to the people of District 1 and the county. I ask for your support as we work together to realize our enormous potential.
Simon can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-272-3368.
A type of Martian aurora first identified by NASA's MAVEN spacecraft in 2016 is actually the most common form of aurora occurring on the Red Planet, according to new results from the mission.
The aurora is known as a proton aurora and can help scientists track water loss from Mars' atmosphere.
At Earth, aurora are commonly seen as colorful displays of light in the night sky near the polar regions, where they are also known as the northern and southern lights.
However, the proton aurora on Mars happens during the day and gives off ultraviolet light, so it is invisible to the human eye but detectable to the Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument on the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft.
MAVEN's mission is to investigate how the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere and water, transforming its climate from one that might have supported life to one that is cold, dry, and inhospitable.
Since the proton aurora is generated indirectly by hydrogen derived from Martian water that's in the process of being lost to space, this aurora could be used to help track ongoing Martian water loss.
"In this new study using MAVEN/IUVS data from multiple Mars years, the team has found that periods of increased atmospheric escape correspond with increases in proton aurora occurrence and intensity," said Andréa Hughes of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. Hughes is lead author of a paper on this research published December 12 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics.
"Perhaps one day, when interplanetary travel becomes commonplace, travelers arriving at Mars during southern summer will have front-row seats to observe Martian proton aurora majestically dancing across the dayside of the planet (while wearing ultraviolet-sensitive goggles, of course). These travelers will witness firsthand the final stages of Mars losing the remainder of its water to space,” Hughes said.
Hughes presented the research on Dec. 12 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
Different phenomena produce different kinds of aurora. However, all aurora at Earth and Mars are powered by solar activity, whether it be explosions of high-speed particles known as solar storms, eruptions of gas and magnetic fields known as coronal mass ejections, or gusts in the solar wind, a stream of electrically conducting gas that blows continuously into space at around a million miles per hour.
For example, the northern and southern lights at Earth happen when violent solar activity disturbs Earth's magnetosphere, causing high velocity electrons to slam into gas particles in Earth's nightside upper atmosphere and make them glow.
Similar processes generate Mars' discrete and diffuse aurora – two types of aurora that were previously observed on the Martian nightside.
Proton aurora form when solar wind protons (which are hydrogen atoms stripped of their lone electrons by intense heat) interact with the upper atmosphere on the dayside of Mars.
As they approach Mars, the protons coming in with the solar wind transform into neutral atoms by stealing electrons from hydrogen atoms in the outer edge of the Martian hydrogen corona, a huge cloud of hydrogen surrounding the planet.
When those high-speed incoming atoms hit the atmosphere, some of their energy is emitted as ultraviolet light.
When the MAVEN team first observed the proton aurora, they thought it was a relatively unusual occurrence.
"At first, we believed that these events were rather rare because we weren't looking at the right times and places," said Mike Chaffin, research scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, or LASP, and second author of the study. "But after a closer look, we found that proton aurora are occurring far more often in dayside southern summer observations than we initially expected."
The team has found proton aurora in about 14 percent of their dayside observations, which increases to more than 80 percent of the time when only dayside southern summer observations are considered.
"By comparison, IUVS has detected diffuse aurora on Mars in a few percent of orbits with favorable geometry, and discrete aurora detections are rarer still in the dataset," said Nick Schneider, coauthor and lead of the IUVS team at LASP.
The correlation with the southern summer gave a clue as to why proton aurora are so common and how they could be used to track water loss. During southern summer on Mars, the planet is also near its closest distance to the Sun in its orbit and huge dust storms can occur.
Summer warming and dust activity appear to cause proton auroras by forcing water vapor high in the atmosphere. Solar extreme ultraviolet light breaks the water into its components, hydrogen and oxygen.
The light hydrogen is weakly bound by Mars' gravity and enhances the hydrogen corona surrounding Mars, increasing hydrogen loss to space. More hydrogen in the corona makes interactions with solar-wind protons more common, making proton aurora more frequent and brighter.
"All the conditions necessary to create Martian proton aurora (e.g., solar wind protons, an extended hydrogen atmosphere, and the absence of a global dipole magnetic field) are more commonly available at Mars than those needed to create other types of aurora," said Hughes. "Also, the connection between MAVEN's observations of increased atmospheric escape and increases in proton aurora frequency and intensity means that proton aurora can actually be used as a proxy for what's happening in the hydrogen corona surrounding Mars, and therefore, a proxy for times of increased atmospheric escape and water loss."
This research was funded by the MAVEN mission. MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado, and NASA Goddard manages the MAVEN project. NASA is exploring our Solar System and beyond, uncovering worlds, stars, and cosmic mysteries near and far with our powerful fleet of space and ground-based missions.
BERKELEY, Calif. – Fiber-optic cables that constitute a global undersea telecommunications network could one day help scientists study offshore earthquakes and the geologic structures hidden deep beneath the ocean surface.
In a paper appearing in the journal Science, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, or MBARI, and Rice University describe an experiment that turned 20 kilometers of undersea fiber-optic cable into the equivalent of 10,000 seismic stations along the ocean floor.
During their four-day experiment in Monterey Bay, they recorded a 3.5 magnitude quake and seismic scattering from underwater fault zones.
Their technique, which they had previously tested with fiber-optic cables on land, could provide much-needed data on quakes that occur under the sea, where few seismic stations exist, leaving 70 percent of Earth’s surface without earthquake detectors.
“There is a huge need for seafloor seismology. Any instrumentation you get out into the ocean, even if it is only for the first 50 kilometers from shore, will be very useful,” said Nate Lindsey, a UC Berkeley graduate student and lead author of the paper.
Lindsey and Jonathan Ajo-Franklin, a geophysics professor at Rice University in Houston and a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, led the experiment with the assistance of Craig Dawe of MBARI, which owns the fiber-optic cable.
The cable stretches 52 kilometers offshore to the first seismic station ever placed on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, put there 17 years ago by MBARI and Barbara Romanowicz, a UC Berkeley professor of the graduate school in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science.
A permanent cable to the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS) node was laid in 2009, 20 kilometers of which were used in this test while off-line for yearly maintenance in March 2018.
“This is really a study on the frontier of seismology, the first time anyone has used offshore fiber-optic cables for looking at these types of oceanographic signals or for imaging fault structures,” said Ajo-Franklin. “One of the blank spots in the seismographic network worldwide is in the oceans.”
The ultimate goal of the researchers’ efforts, he said, is to use the dense fiber-optic networks around the world – probably more than 10 million kilometers in all, on both land and under the sea – as sensitive measures of Earth’s movement, allowing earthquake monitoring in regions that don’t have expensive ground stations like those that dot much of earthquake-prone California and the Pacific Coast.
“The existing seismic network tends to have high-precision instruments, but is relatively sparse, whereas this gives you access to a much denser array,” said Ajo-Franklin.
Photonic seismology
The technique the researchers use is Distributed Acoustic Sensing, which employs a photonic device that sends short pulses of laser light down the cable and detects the backscattering created by strain in the cable that is caused by stretching. With interferometry, they can measure the backscatter every 2 meters (6 feet), effectively turning a 20-kilometer cable into 10,000 individual motion sensors.
“These systems are sensitive to changes of nanometers to hundreds of picometers for every meter of length,” Ajo-Franklin said. “That is a one-part-in-a-billion change.”
Earlier this year, they reported the results of a six-month trial on land using 22 kilometers of cable near Sacramento emplaced by the Department of Energy as part of its 13,000-mile ESnet Dark Fiber Testbed. Dark fiber refers to optical cables laid underground, but unused or leased out for short-term use, in contrast to the actively used “lit” internet. The researchers were able to monitor seismic activity and environmental noise and obtain subsurface images at a higher resolution and larger scale than would have been possible with a traditional sensor network.
“The beauty of fiber-optic seismology is that you can use existing telecommunications cables without having to put out 10,000 seismometers,” Lindsey said. “You just walk out to the site and connect the instrument to the end of the fiber.”
During the underwater test, they were able to measure a broad range of frequencies of seismic waves from a magnitude 3.4 earthquake that occurred 45 kilometers inland near Gilroy, California, and map multiple known and previously unmapped submarine fault zones, part of the San Gregorio Fault system. They also were able to detect steady-state ocean waves – so-called ocean microseisms – as well as storm waves, all of which matched buoy and land seismic measurements.
“We have huge knowledge gaps about processes on the ocean floor and the structure of the oceanic crust because it is challenging to put instruments like seismometers at the bottom of the sea,” said Michael Manga, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science who is not a co-author of the paper. “This research shows the promise of using existing fiber-optic cables as arrays of sensors to image in new ways. Here, they’ve identified previously hypothesized waves that had not been detected before.”
According to Lindsey, there’s rising interest among seismologists to record Earth's ambient noise field caused by interactions between the ocean and the continental land: essentially, waves sloshing around near coastlines.
“By using these coastal fiber optic cables, we can basically watch the waves we are used to seeing from shore mapped onto the seafloor, and the way these ocean waves couple into the Earth to create seismic waves,” he said.
To make use of the world’s lit fiber-optic cables, Lindsey and Ajo-Franklin need to show that they can ping laser pulses through one channel without interfering with other channels in the fiber that carry independent data packets. They’re conducting experiments now with lit fibers, while also planning fiber-optic monitoring of seismic events in a geothermal area south of Southern California’s Salton Sea, in the Brawley seismic zone.
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through Berkeley Lab’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, the National Science Foundation (DGE 1106400) and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. The final analysis was supported by the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory as part of the GoMCarb project (DE-AC02-05CH11231).
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The majority of county of Lake offices will be closed to the public Monday, Dec. 23, through Friday, Dec. 27, in observance of the holidays.
In previous years, the county observed a three-day closure surrounding Christmas day.
Beginning in July of this year, the Board of Supervisors took action to provide employees in all represented and unrepresented groups five days off in consideration of the winter holidays.
The Lake County Library’s branches will also be closed Saturday, Dec. 28, and Lake County Animal Care and Control will be closed to the general public that day as well, as Lake County News has reported.
“Historically, demand for most County services has lulled around the holidays,” said County Administrative Officer, Carol J. Huchingson. “Our board saw this norm as an opportunity to partner with labor representatives to provide employees a meaningful benefit, without prohibitive additional cost to the county’s general fund. Employees have in recent years been provided two annual personal days, and those were exchanged by our employee groups for more time off around the holidays.”
Huchingson said that while county offices will generally be closed to the public, county officials and select staff will work behind closed doors to fulfill mandates and support critical functions.
“Behavioral Health Crisis services, jail staff, sheriff patrol and Central Dispatch, for example, will remain available 24/7. Some departments have made additional accommodations for local independent Special Districts, and our Auditor-Controller anticipates issuing payroll checks for the local entities their office supports,” Huchingson said.
Concern has been expressed regarding late-December real estate transactions, and County Assessor-Recorder Richard Ford reported that he will open the office on Friday, Dec. 20, to compensate for the added year-end volume.”
“We evaluate the calendar and adjust accordingly, every year,” Ford said.
“Road crews will be on-call and available to respond to road hazards, as required,” said County Public Works Director Scott De Leon.
Any hazards should first be reported to the California Highway Patrol, which will appropriately route the inquiry.
Public Services Director Lars Ewing reported the Eastlake Landfill will be closed to the public Dec. 24 to 26, but otherwise open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Outdoor county park facilities will be available during their customary hours.
The Lower Lake Historic Schoolhouse Museum and the Historic Courthouse Museum in Lakeport will be open Friday, Dec. 27, and Saturday, Dec. 28, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Courthouse Museum will likewise maintain its customary Sunday hours – noon to 4 p.m. – on Dec. 29. Gibson Museum and Cultural Center in Middletown is closed for a building remodel through Jan. 2.
The Lake County Superior Court will be open the week of Dec. 23, with the exception of Christmas Day.
All county offices with responsibilities to support court-related matters and proceedings have planned to provide appropriate coverage.
The Sheriff’s Records Bureau and Civil Division will be open 8 a.m. to noon, with the exception of Christmas Day.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors heard an update from the organizers of Lake County’s annual Point in Time count, which is meant to gauge the number of homeless members of the community.
Jordan O’Halloran, chair of the Point in Time Count Committee, and Chris Taliaferro, chair of the Lake County Continuum of Care, spoke to the board about the count, set to take place on Jan. 27 around Lake County.
The Lake County Continuum of Care is a coalition of organizations working to end homelessness.
Taliaferro said the Continuum of Care has a new website where people can find out about the count and how to help.
On Jan. 24, volunteers will pack bags with donated items to hand out to those counted, Taliaferro said.
“The reason why the Point in Time count is important in this county is for affordable housing,” he said, explaining that the local homeless numbers don’t support a lot of the housing projects the group has been looking at doing.
As a result, they have focused on beefing up the count. This week, fliers will be going out to recruit volunteers. Taliaferro said he’ll also be coordinating with volunteers for count locations, with each location to have a person designated to answer questions.
In the next two weeks, the general fliers will be going out about the Point in Time count, with information on where the count will take place.
He said the next Point in Time count meeting will take place at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 19, at Redwood Coast Services in Lakeport.
Taliaferro said there will be count locations in Clearlake, Clearlake Oaks, Kelseyville, Lakeport, Lucerne and Middletown.
He raised issues with law enforcement, explaining that a lot of people who are homeless get arrested. Before the last count, Taliaferro said law enforcement busted up some of the homeless camps, which made it harder to count the homeless.
The Continuum of Care is trying to do strategic planning so people can have a point of contact if they are in need, Taliaferro said.
Board of Supervisors Chair Tina Scott asked Taliaferro if the organization had reached out to law enforcement. He said they had.
Taliaferro also explained that the Continuum of Care is getting a system up and running for data collection, with that data expected to qualify them for more federal funding.
Supervisor Bruno Sabatier noted that the most recent Point in Time count was about 50 percent of the previous count. He asked if Taliaferro could explain that change.
Taliaferro said that during the last count, in addition to issues with law enforcement, it had been raining for the entire week leading up to the count. As a result, many homeless were leaving Lake County.
This will be the sixth Point in Time count done locally. Taliaferro said the numbers two years ago were inflated hugely because the Continuum of Care at that time had a new chair who wanted to do things differently, and counted people as homeless but didn’t have the necessary accompanying data.
Before that, the counts had been averaging 200 to 350 homeless per count. Two years ago, it jumped to 600. But in January, Taliaferro said the numbers were back down and in line with the past years. That required them to justify the change and, in the end, the larger number hurt them in their federal funding efforts.
Sabatier asked about count methodology. Taliaferro said they count everyone, including those at risk of homelessness, because different grants have different definitions for homelessness.
O’Halloran said that next month’s count will take place all day long, rather than just part of the day.
Supervisor Rob Brown said that he found out at a meeting last week that Caltrans is working to break up illegal encampments in its right of way and on adjacent properties, but is trying to carry out the process in a more compassionate way. He suggested the Continuum of Care should work with Caltrans and said he would get contact information for Caltrans.
Sabatier asked if the Point in Time count and the annual veterans stand down could be combined to help get more participation from homeless veterans.
Taliaferro said the Point in Time count is mandated to happen in January. They could look at moving the stand down, although that also is supposed to happen at certain times.
Scott asked about how many homeless veterans participated in the stand down this fall. Taliaferro said 52, down slightly from previous years when the fires led to more homeless veterans. Overall, 220 veterans attended the event.
Taliaferro told the board that items they will include in gift bags for people counted gift cards, hygiene items and clothing, as well as contact information for the Continuum of Care. However, on Tuesday he didn’t yet have central contact numbers for the organization, explaining that their strategic planning efforts for contact information are still under way.
He said he appreciated the Board of Supervisors wanting more information about the effort.
“Housing is one of the big things we’re working on and we have to make sure that this Point in Time count does better than it has in the past,” he said.
Scott thanked him for doing an amazing job running the Continuum of Care, noting that she’s seen an improvement over the past few years and she’s excited about the direction it’s going.
For more information about the Continuum of Care, including volunteering for the Point in Time count or donating for the gift bags, visit https://www.lakecoc.org or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a big selection of many types of dogs needing homes.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian Shepherd, bluetick coonhound, cattle dog, Doberman Pinscher, pit bull, poodle, Rhodesian Ridgeback, terrier and treeing walker coonhound.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Male poodle
This senior male poodle has a long black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 2, ID No. 13343.
Male terrier
This young male terrier has a short brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 3a, ID No. 13349.
Male terrier
This young male terrier has a short red coat.
He is in kennel No. 3b, ID No. 13350.
Female boxer-pit bull mix
This female boxer-pit bull mix has a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 5, ID No. 13338.
Female Doberman Pinscher
This young female Doberman Pinscher has a short gray and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 6, ID No. 13335.
Male pit bull terrier
This young male pit bull terrier has a short brown brindle coat.
He was found in the Lower Lake area. He is reported to be good in vehicles and good with cats.
He is in kennel No. 7, ID No. 13342.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short blue and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 10, ID No. 13345.
‘Patsy’
“Patsy” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix with a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 13290.
‘Max’
“Max” is a male pit bull terrier with a short tan and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 23, ID No. 13173.
‘Hazel’
“Hazel” is a female cattle dog with a medium-length tricolor coat.
She has been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 13255.
Male Australian Shepherd
This male Australian Shepherd has a long black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. 13250.
‘Daisey’
“Daisey” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix with a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13291.
‘Lucy’
“Lucy” is a female pit bull terrier with a short brindle coat and cropped ears.
She has been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 30, ID No. 13263.
‘Goofy’
“Goofy” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback with a short tan and black coat.
He’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 13210.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
On Friday, California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, along with Cal Hospital Compare, recognized hospitals across California for their high performance in maternity care, patient safety and commitment to safe opioid care.
Officials said 36 hospitals met performance standards in both maternity care and patient safety, 134 hospitals met performance standards in maternity care, 77 hospitals met performance standards in patient safety, and 60 hospitals are being recognized for participating in the pilot year of the opioid care honor roll program.
Lake County’s two hospitals, Adventist Health Clear Lake and Sutter Lakeside Hospital, are on the Maternity and Patient Safety Honor Roll, and also were listed among the hospitals that met the maternity care and patient safety standards, with Adventist Health Clear Lake also participating in the opioid care honor roll program pilot.
“Improving the quality of patient care in hospitals is critically important,” said Dr. Ghaly. “These annual measurements through Cal Hospital Compare allow us to acknowledge hospitals doing excellent work and also inform hospitals when improvement is needed.”
“Cal Hospital Compare is proud to contribute to the statewide effort to improve quality in the hospital setting by providing a roadmap and way to evaluate performance for hospitals in the important areas of maternity, patient safety, and opioid care – and show where improvement is needed,” said Bruce Spurlock, MD, the executive director of Cal Hospital Compare. “We invite all California hospitals to use these honor rolls as a tool to evaluate and benchmark performance against other hospitals.”
Cal Hospital Compare, a nonprofit organization, has been providing Californians with objective hospital performance ratings for more than a decade.
For the last four years, California has also recognized hospitals that meet or surpass a statewide target of C-section rates of 23.9 percent for low-risk, first-births.
For mothers, overuse of C-sections can result in higher rates of complications like hemorrhage, transfusions, infection, and blood clots. The surgery also brings risks for babies, including higher rates of infection, respiratory complications, neonatal intensive care unit stays, and lower breastfeeding rates.
The California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative collects the data and actively works with hospitals to safely reduce low-risk C-sections.
Between 2014 and 2018, the percentage of California hospitals meeting the target went from 40 percent to 57 percent, representing 134 hospitals statewide.
While there is still significant opportunity for improvement, the fact that so many hospitals have already reached or surpassed this target indicates that reducing unnecessary C-sections is a top priority for California hospitals providing maternity care.
Cal Hospital Compare is also releasing its first Patient Safety Honor Roll today, recognizing 77 hospitals with high safety profiles in comparison to other California hospitals. Cal Hospital Compare has rigorously evaluated a set of publicly available patient safety measures to evaluate hospitals across several areas in patient safety, including hospital acquired infections, adverse events, sepsis management, patient experience and more.
This year Cal Hospital Compare launched the Opioid Care Honor Roll to help address the ongoing opioid crisis.
According to state data, nearly 2,200 Californians died of an opioid-related overdose in 2017. Patients with opioid use disorder are frequently hospitalized or visit the emergency department due to complications of the condition without also receiving treatment for the underlying disease of opioid addiction. This is a missed opportunity and leaves patients untreated and at high risk of future overdose.
In this pilot year of the program, 60 hospitals voluntarily reported their progress on addressing the opioid crisis. While results show that all participating hospitals are making progress, it is clear more work is needed.
In 2020, Cal Hospital Compare will continue to offer learning opportunities to support the rapid spread of evidence-based practices among hospitals.
“I encourage all hospitals to participate in the Opioid Care Honor Roll program next year,” said Dr. Ghaly. “Participating in the Opioid Care Honor Roll demonstrates a hospital’s commitment to treating opioid use disorder and reducing deaths from addiction.”
The California Health and Human Services Agency and Cal Hospital Compare recognize the following 36 hospitals for achieving recognition on the Maternity and Patient Safety Honor Rolls.
For more information on individual honor rolls and recipients, please refer to the Cal Hospital Compare website here.
36 Hospitals with Maternity and Patient Safety Honor Roll Status
Adventist Health Bakersfield, Bakersfield Adventist Health Clear Lake, Clearlake Adventist Health Hanford, Hanford Barton Memorial Hospital, South Lake Tahoe Centinela Hospital Medical Center, Inglewood Community Memorial Hospital, Ventura Doctors Hospital of Manteca, Manteca Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, Modesto El Camino Hospital Los Gatos, Los Gatos French Hospital Medical Center, San Luis Obispo John Muir Medical Center - Walnut Creek Campus, Walnut Creek Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center, Downey Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center, Fontana Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center, Fresno Kaiser Permanente Modesto Medical Center, Modesto Kaiser Permanente Orange County - Anaheim Medical Center, Anaheim Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center, Panorama City Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center, Redwood City Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center, Riverside Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center, Roseville Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, Santa Clara Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center, Sacramento Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center, Vallejo Memorial Hospital Los Banos, Los Banos PIH Health Hospital – Whittier, Whitter Redwood Memorial Hospital, Fortuna Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, Chula Vista St. Elizabeth Community Hospital, Red Bluff St. Louise Regional Hospital, Gilroy Sutter Lakeside Hospital, Lakeport Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Roseville Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, Santa Rosa Sutter Solano Medical Center, Vallejo UC Irvine Health, Orange UC San Diego Health - Hillcrest, UC San Diego Medical Center, La Jolla UCLA Medical Center - Santa Monica, Santa Monica
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Clearlake Animal Control has many dogs waiting for new homes this month.
The kennels also have many dogs that need to be reunited with their owners. To find the lost/found pet section, click here.
The following dogs are ready for adoption.
‘Blue’
“Blue” is a male Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
He has a short blue and white coat and has been neutered.
He is dog No. 2420.
‘Burke’
“Burke” is a male Labrador Retriever with a short black coat with white markings.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 2628.
‘Charlotte’
“Charlotte” is a female Akita mix.
She is dog No. 3040.
‘Cow’
“Cow” is a female terrier mix with a short black and white coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 1230.
‘Fable’
“Fable” is a female Alaskan Malamute mix with a brown and buff coat.
She is dog No. 3044.
‘King’
“King” is a male Staffordshire Bull Terrier with a short brindle coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 3034.
‘Linus’
“Linus” is a male Staffordshire Bull Terrier mix with a short gray and white coat.
He is dog No. 3255.
‘Precious’
“Precious” is a female Staffordshire Bull Terrier with a short black coat.
She is dog No. 3268.
‘Woodrow’
“Woodrow” is a male Staffordshire Bull Terrier with a black and white coat.
He is dog No. 3281.
Clearlake Animal Control’s shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53, off Airport Road.
Hours of operation area noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The shelter is closed Sundays, Mondays and major holidays; the shelter offers appointments on the days it’s closed to accommodate people.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions.
Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or at the city’s Web site.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.