Brandon Bishop

@brandontbishop

Seismologist, investigates the Andes and subduction zones, currently complexly affiliated with St. Louis University and looking for new projects. Replies to my geoscience posts that include LLM content get your account blocked.

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Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· 28d

This is all sitting under this title, which you'd think would, like, present *evidence*of something, but doesn't; and a paragraph about industrial espionage (totally different thing!) and about how China is "probably" the country doing the most to collect information on US academic research.

Screenshot of section title reading: "5.7 China and Foreign Influence in Fundamental Research"

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· 28d

This leads into a very odd paragraph that seems to realize it's trying to build an "enemy within" narrative and realize that that's bad, but still kind of wants to build that narrative.

Screenshotted text: "Finally, many Chinese scholars study in the United States and choose to remain and become U.S. residents. However, that does not mean they have given up strong feelings for their home country or have adopted U.S. views or cultural norms. Those who have emigrated from China to the United States frequently continue to be closely tied to China and may actively seek to help their home country’s progress in legal ways. It is important to note that the many scholars in the United States who are Chinese citizens or U.S. citizens originally from China are typically not acting as representatives of the CCP or the Chinese government and are not necessarily in agreement with the aims, methods, or policies of those institutions. Like any émigrés, such individuals must be treated as fellow residents or citizens of our country and should be judged on their personal actions and not by profiling based on the actions of the government and political institutions of their home country."

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· 28d

Report writers apparently don't know enough about China to know it's the *Century* of Humiliation, not *Centuries* of Humiliation and a contested bit of propaganda within China. I also have no idea what the point of this paragraph is--people generally don't think their society is evil?

Screenshotted text reading: "A third important consideration is the CCP and Chinese government view that China, after centuries of outside oppression, is seeking to assume its rightful place in the world as a major power. Chinese citizens who are proud of their country and its achievements may agree with the CCP and Chinese government’s ambitions, but may not agree with its methods or policies, just
as a U.S. citizen may not agree with aspects of U.S. foreign policy. However, in China, the means of dissent are typically different, perhaps making a Chinese scholar reluctant to express any view at all, which may be taken as agreement when discussing cultural norms of science
ethics."

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· 28d

This bit assumes the average American won't cooperate with police or federal agents and that every Chinese citizen is an unwitting intelligence asset or worse. Also no one appears to have, like, talked to Chinese researchers (I can guarantee they're not thinking about the National Intelligence Law)

Screenshot from report reading: "As a totalitarian nation, the PRC government requires a degree of cooperation from its citizens
in ways the United States does not. For example, the National Intelligence Law, most recently updated in 2017, requires citizens and organizations to render assistance to the security and intelligence services when asked. Further, the phrasing of the National Intelligence Law implies that citizens should not disclose that they have assisted intelligence and security services. Many U.S. citizens would view this law as particularly vexatious and some, perhaps many, would refuse to comply. However, China has a different history and different imperatives and its citizens may view the National Intelligence Law as a fact of life and find a U.S. citizen’s view of the law strange. When a Chinese scholar comes to an American graduate school to study, the
scholar may not be aware that the norm in our research community is that information regarding the research group’s activities might not be routinely shared with government or university officials – this is something left up to the head of the research group (except for required reporting associated with grants).

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· 28d

This bit is, even prior to the present situation in the US, kind of fucking hilarious. "My God! The Chinese state is involved with the Chinese state! They also don't have a federal system *gasp!*"

screen shot from report reading: "China’s society differs from that of the United States in many ways. Particularly relevant is the relationship between Chinese academic institutions, the government of the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In China these are intertwined in a way that is entirely different from the United States, where higher education institutions are largely independent of the
government. In 2018, Chen Baosheng, China’s Minister of Education, described plans for restructuring the curriculum of universities to bring it into line with current ideological thought. It is common for CCP officials to be represented in university administration and in granting
agencies. Anecdotally, many academic scientists in China report that they do not typically experience interference in their work from the party or government, but that it is an ever-present concern.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· 29d

The pit of the oracle bones at the Ruins of Yin, including body of the last keeper sacrificed on pit closure. A pit with sunlight filtering is filled with turtle plastrons and cattle scapulas. Photo from wiki.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jul 13

Donnie Darko meme where the title character says "I invented a new power source." Then his mother asks "New power source or just another way to make steam?" To which he replied "...just another way to make steam."

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jul 3

This is not how normal faulting works. And the authors (redacted, but affiliations are Stanford and USGS Menlo Park) should know better.

A model of a normal fault, not a simplification for numerical modeling purposes, but a conceptual model for understanding a normal fault where the upper crust pulls of the hanging wall pulls laterally away from the fault surface in pure extensional strain and then undergoes gravitational collapse back on to the fault surface.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jul 2

Like the topographic profile (white line in last image) screams normal fault footwall and tilting to me, likely accentuated by erosion.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jul 2

Cranking up the topographic palette to highlight things, there's a couple of things superimposed here. One is set of three slightly east of north volcanic centers, the middle one of which forms the eastern side of the elevated topography.

Another GeoMapApp topographic map, this time with everything below ~1400 meters in green, everything above 1900 meters in white and varying from light green to brown to grey in between. The circular feature from the first divides into a high standing volcanic center and a lower, flatter mass to its west.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jul 2

Ok, Mt. Mazama is circled here in blue, an eroded volcanic center I think is Yamsay is circled in green, does the thing in blue have a name? The presence of eroded (monogenic?) eruptive centers is probably not important there (they're all over) but quasi-circular topo bound by faults is weird.

Topographic map made in GeoMapApp focused on a small chunk of Oregon in and just west of the Cascades Volcanic Arc. There are three features circled in different colors as described in the post. There are many smaller, eroded minor volcanic centers scattered throughout the image and a few very prominent normal fault bounded grabens partially filled by lakes in the southern part of this image related to the northern most part of Basin and Range Extension (and overlapping back-extension?).

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jul 2

History Channel It Was Aliens Guy Meme but reading "I'm not saying it was time-traveling Manchu partisans... ...but it was time-traveling Manchu partisans."

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 30

Homer talking to Bart meme at sunset with the text "Dumbest decision our space program has made so far.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 29

This is not an exaggeration. www.energy.gov/cmm/what-are... Note that Molybdenum, despite being vitally important to alloying is still not listed.

A periodic table listing the critical minerals/critical materials that includes basically every metal and most metalloids.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 29

And same assumptions (plus stopping Sierra Nevada block motion prior to San Andreas start up) gives this at ~60 million years ago. Just rotating the Coastal Block (which is actually an accreted terrane...) gives you the Columbia Embayment and a massive STEP Fault, & pretty understandable tectonics.

Map done using the rotations and translations of the link in the first post. The Siletz Terrane (the same thing as the Oregon Coast Block) restores into the Columbia Embayment, and the embayment allows it to rotate without smacking into the rest of North America. No attempt has been made to restore anything north of the location of the restored Oregon Coast Block.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 29

Assuming constant rotation rate and translation rates in the last 17 million years gives this map just prior to the start of the Columbia River Flood Basalts. No attempt has been made to restore the Olympic Peninsula or farther north. Things fit quite well.

Map created using the blocks and rates in the originally linked material. The Oregon Coast Block restores to be immediately contiguous to a southeast shifted Sierra Nevada block, resulting in a margin that's more or less straight. The Mendocino Triple Junction lies a couple hundred km south of the edge of this image and the margin is all Juan de Fuca plate subduction.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 29

Like 70 degrees of rotation around the modern Oregon Coast-North America pole or rotation is *huge*! Would vaguely restore into the Cretaceous subduction zone's position for the Idaho's Challis Volcanic Arc, I guess, and the Columbia Embayment.

Map of taken from the link in the first post with a very crude 70 degree applied to it about the Oregon Coast Block-North America Plate's pole of rotation. It restores to northern Nevada-Idaho.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 28

USGS catalogs are not perfect for earthquakes less than magnitude 4, but even magnitude 4 earthquakes will outline the zone of aftershocks reasonably well--terminates at Caracas. Large fault scarps (if that's what they are) like those in the article would usually require significant earthquakes.

Map of Earthquakes from 1-28-2026 to 6-28-2026 covering Northern Venezuela and Trinidad & Tobago . Earthquakes are colored based on how recently they occurred with orange in the last 24 hours, yellow the last 7 days, white the last month, and grey prior to that. The mainshock and foreshock for the Venezuela earthquake are the large circles towards the left of the image. Aftershocks are orange and yellow circles between those two large circles and Caracas. These earthquakes appear to have occurred near the red line marking the Caribbean-South American plate boundary. most of the boundary has no evidence of earthquake activity in the last 5 months.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 27

They did it! They actually did it! They annotated the Hydration Break! #hydrationbreak

Seismic analyst has added an annotation for the Hydration Break.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 27

Watching World Cup matches as they were meant to be: on the vertical component of an accelerometer and annotated by a seismic analyst.

The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network PNSN's accelerometer HWK3 placed in the stadium hosting the Egypt-Iran match. Each ten minute line of the seismogram is a different rainbow color. Annotations mark where the game starts and where goals or blocks happen. Each of these looks a bit like a mini-earthquake.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 26

Doing the same thing from station RCBR in Brazil (simple geology(?), distance of 36.33 degrees) gives this record. Similar story here, a large arrival comes in 39 seconds after the foreshock's P-arrival and marks a change in frequency content--presumably this is the 2nd event.

Record for station RCBR from IRIS's Wilber 3. This time the predicted arrival for the foreshock looks accurate on close examination. Light blue box marks 20 second window likely contaminated by local converted phases. Second red line is 39 seconds after the foreshock arrival, and this timelines up precisely with a very large arrival and a change in frequency content, note there are a couple of large arrivals 10 seconds or so before this one that are odd.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 26

Picking at random station FFC in Canada (simple geology, distance of 51.56 degrees) gives the record below. There is a change in frequency content a bit before 39 seconds post-foreshock P-wave arrival, just before some very large amplitude arrivals come in, that could plausibly be the second event

Station record from IRIS's Wilber 3 tool for station FFC. Image has been modified to show window of time possibly contaminated by local converted phases (20 seconds after the predicted P-wave arrival (solid red line) and my P-wave arrival pick (dashed red line)) and 39 seconds after the possible P-wave arrivals (this is equivalent to the predicted P-wave arrival of the second event, dashed version is based off of my P-wave arrival pick for the foreshock). The black vertical line identifies an apparent change in frequency content (waves look somewhat different, immediately before a set of very high amplitude pulses) that might be the arrival from the second event.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 26

Holy shit, this thing's accurate!

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 25

The bigger context of the tectonic mess of northern South America--essentially everything from the Gulf of Guayaquil in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela is moving towards the northeast/east relative to the center of South America as part of the North Andean Sliver. from here: doi.org/10.1093/gji/...

Figure from linked paper showing a model of geodetic slip rates along the boundaries of major parts of the North Andean Sliver n different colors from cyan (nearly 0 mm per year of slip) to dark red (18 mm per year of slip). The thicker line marks the eastern edge of the North Andean Sliver. Most slip rates are relatively low in Ecuador and Colombia (8 mm per year or less), but high in Venezuela (10 mm per year in the western most part of Venezuela and 18 mm per year near the edge of the map (a bit east of Caracas). The earthquakes yesterday occurred either along the dark orange segment or dark red segment (or both) of the North Andean Sliver's boundary with stable South America.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 23

Another week, another update to the abysmal National Science Foundation funding numbers for geoscience. Total of 164 geo grants awarded this year, 25.6% of the pre-Trump average. source: grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

A plot showing the number of grants awarded by the geoscience directorate for the federal fiscal years of 2021 through 2026. Pre-Trump numbers are all roughly the same, 2025 is about half of the pre-Trump average and this year is consistently a quarter of the pre-Trump average. In prior years new grants were rapidly awarded between July and mid-August before basically stopping around late August. Not yet clear if this year's curve will follow a similar pattern.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 19

True, but the point of these is to try to capture end members and focus on snapshot structural view (hence in part the classic Chilean vs Marianas type localities of Uyeda and Kanamori). Figure from: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Uyeda and Kanamori, 1979's Chilean type and Mariana type subduction zones, very, very rough hand drawn equivalents of the cross-sections I've done up.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 19

And just for side-by-side comparison....

The Ocean-Continent Subduction System from the quoted thread in the first post. Scale is 1:1 and should match the other figure in this post.

The Ocean-Ocean Subduction System from the first post in this thread. Scale is 1:1 and should match the other figure in this post.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 18

My procrastination while thinking about subduction zones yields (1:1 scaled) results! The primary structural features of an ocean-continent subduction zone, from the trench through the arc and fold-thrust belt, to the foreland basin system and craton.

A cross-section for a subduction zone, from 0 km to 300 km depth and from ~-50 to ~550 km distance from the trench. Colors are chosen after the dominant colors in relevant rocks for each feature. Darkest green represents harzbergite-like (melt removed) mantle material, dark green represents lherzolite-like mantle material (here taken to represent "convecting" mantle like the asthenosphere or mantle wedge), blue green to brownish green to represents serpentinized mantle transitioning to mantle altered by arc metasomatism. Black to dark blue to green represents the transition of basaltic oceanic crustal rock from sub-blueschist to blueschist to eclogite material. Tan represents continental crust below the depth of the megathrust, brown represents continental crust above the megathrust.
A dark green dipping feature is labeled the "subducting plate" its surface to about 100 km is black to bluish where it is in contact with a feature labeled the upper plate. Below that depth, a green convecting mantle wedge separates the plates.
Above this, tan continental crust starts at the trench then thickens to >50 km depth near the middle of the image, then it thins back to ~35 km for the right half of the image.
Below the cross-section different features are explained in relation to distance from the trench, the top row shows different tectonic or geomorphic features are labeled, the second row shows the upper plate's lithosphere, colored as described above, the third row shows the nature of the contact between the subducting plate and overlying material. The last row shows the different phases basaltic oceanic crust goes through as described above.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 17

Headline: "Community Outreach and Participation in Tourist Cenotes" K'inich Janaab' Pakal from the afterlife: "Yes. Hahaha. Yes!"

The Sickos meme where a man is standing outside a window at night saying "Yes... hahaha... Yes!" but changed so the guy has K'inich Janaab' Pakal on his shirt.

Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop· Jun 17

The human ear is a really shitty seismometer--just *look* at this frequency response. From here, which some people should *really* be reading: hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Ph4060...