Episode 49 · Lori Dengler · July 13, 2024
Lori Dengler looks back on a long career in geology and geophysics, from growing up in the Palm Springs area to landing at Humboldt State in 1978. She talks about how she found her way into science, what plate tectonics opened up for her, and why she’s stayed so connected to teaching and public work in Humboldt.
Watch the conversation
What this episode covers
- Growing up in Rancho Mirage and spending her childhood riding horses in the desert
- Finding geology at Berkeley after starting out in humanities, journalism, and other paths
- The moment plate tectonics and an intro geology class changed her direction
- Why she chose geophysics, and how that shaped her work on earthquakes and tsunamis
- Coming to Humboldt in 1978, teaching in the geology department, and retiring after 37-plus years
- Her ongoing writing, OLLI talks, and interest in sharing science with the community
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Transcript
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Scott Hammond: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, Scott Hammond and 100% Humboldt with my new best friend, Lori Dengler.
Lori Dengler: Hello.
Scott Hammond: Hi, Lori. How are you?
Lori Dengler: I am just fine.
Scott Hammond: Tell us, tell us your job, what you do, who you are, and where you came from.
Lori Dengler: Well, the best thing about my job is that I am officially retired.
Scott Hammond: Ah.
Lori Dengler: Uh, I came to Humboldt in 1978. That's when I began teaching in-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … the geology department-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … at then Humboldt State University.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: And that turned into a 37 plus year career.
Scott Hammond: Wow. Wow.
Lori Dengler: I retired from teaching in 2015.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, I still have various grants, uh, and contracts.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: I still have an office on campus-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … uh, which I try not to go to very often.
Lori Dengler: Um, but, uh,
Lori Dengler: uh, I, my background, academic background is geophysics. And I came in in 1978 as a part-time temporary-
Scott Hammond: Huh
Lori Dengler: … uh, teaching person.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, at that time, the geology department was booming-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and we needed lots of people. And the then department chair-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … uh, he thought it would be nice to have a geophysics person. I was just finishing up my doctorate at Berkeley.
Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.
Lori Dengler: And so I arrived, still not quite finished with writing my dissertation. Um, but that was my introduction, uh, to Humboldt. And then I left for about a year where I did a postdoc at Stanford. Um-
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow
Lori Dengler: … was very fortunate to come back-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and slide back into the geology department. Uh, got a permanent position a couple of years later, and the rest is history.
Scott Hammond: I was just thinking the rest is history. So Joni and I, I came up in '78-
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm
Scott Hammond: … to Humboldt. And was there a Gary Carver in the department?
Lori Dengler: Yes, Gary was fabulous.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Uh, there were, it was a wonderful department.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Um, and, uh, Gary was certainly, uh,
Lori Dengler: the, uh, emotional, the bigger than life-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … the most incredible field geologist I've ever been-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … out in the field with. We've have a lot, we've had a lot of very good field geologists, but Gary's enthusiasm level was over the top.
Scott Hammond: I remember him.
Lori Dengler: And-
Scott Hammond: Yeah. We were in a p- program called Cluster.
Lori Dengler: Yes. That-
Scott Hammond: He was a guest-
Lori Dengler: That's right
Scott Hammond: … guest lecturer, I believe.
Lori Dengler: Right.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Right. So those early days at Humboldt where they were experimenting with different forms of general ed and the Cluster system-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … and that was kind of fading out when I arrived.
Scott Hammond: Yeah, that went away in, I think, '80 or '79 or '80.
Lori Dengler: Yeah. Right. Right.
Scott Hammond: I wonder, I was amongst the last class.
Lori Dengler: Right.
Scott Hammond: Really fun, though. Great way to get your general ed at Humboldt.
Lori Dengler: Oh, yeah.
Scott Hammond: You could get 48 units in a school year, which was unheard of, so. So you're a professor emeritus.
Lori Dengler: I'm at a professor emeritus.
Scott Hammond: Does that mean you get a free office? What, what, what does that include?
Lori Dengler: Um, well, you, you only get an office if you actually have grant
Lori Dengler: support.
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: And so, um, I'm one of the relatively few, uh, emeritus faculty that-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … are on campus fairly frequently.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, um, because I, as I say, I continue to work on-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … uh, a number of grant projects-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … uh, which require me to have an actual place on campus.
Scott Hammond: Very nice. Do, do they have you guest lecture still at, at Hum- at Cal Poly? I was gonna say Humboldt State.
Lori Dengler: I've been involved in the OLLI program.
Scott Hammond: Oh, nice.
Lori Dengler: Pretty much every term I do one of the OLLI brown bag talks.
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: And if anyone is interested, um, the last six or seven OLLI talks I've done are all, you can access those-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … old talks. Um-
Scott Hammond: Wow
Lori Dengler: … and I'll be doing another one this fall.
Scott Hammond: Very cool. So for those of us, well, I know what OLLI is. For those of us out there that don't know what OLLI is, it's, I'll, I'll let you tell about it.
Lori Dengler: Sure.
Scott Hammond: So it, it's amazing. It's a, a great-
Lori Dengler: Right. It's the Osher Lifelong Learning
Lori Dengler: Program.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, there are these OLLI programs in many, if not most universities-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … all over the country-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … uh, that provide a, a broad variety of
Lori Dengler: programs-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … from courses that you, that are semester long.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, some courses last a few weeks.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Some are weekend field trips. They keep trying to get me to do one of the- … bigger courses, and I say, "Nope, I love my brown bag." And they do a series of brown bags. They go through the summer. In fact, there was just one, I think, this Monday on the Life Plan Humboldt-
Scott Hammond: Right
Lori Dengler: … uh, senior housing, cooperative housing project.
Scott Hammond: We had Dr. Anne Lindsey as our-
Lori Dengler: Yes
Scott Hammond: … one of our first guests. Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Yes. I know Anne very well.
Scott Hammond: She's great, yeah.
Lori Dengler: And so, uh, the OLLI program is a wonderful way to, uh, explore
Lori Dengler: things that-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … perhaps you didn't get into in your busy working days.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Um, but the, uh, brown bag talks, anyone can listen into.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: The link is right on the website.
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: And you just click it. You don't have to be young or old. You can be any age-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … any species.
Scott Hammond: Any species.
Lori Dengler: Any species. We're all welcome. And-
Scott Hammond: If you can figure out how to use the computer
Lori Dengler: … and it's, I, I really love that format.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: It's typically about an hour and a half talk. I've talked about the geology of the Humboldt Nuclear Power Plant. That was a fun one.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: I've talked about-The Tonga tsunami in January
Lori Dengler: of 2022.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: I've talked about sources of North Coast earthquakes. And this fall, I will probably be talking about
Lori Dengler: Iceland-
Scott Hammond: Wow
Lori Dengler: … where a ridge and hotspot collide, and, um, it's kinda like Hawaii volcanism on steroids.
Scott Hammond: So it's, it's… Is it erupting now?
Lori Dengler: It is erupting. It's… Yes, it is erupting now.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: It's quieted. Um, it's been in pretty much continuous eruption since
Lori Dengler: 2021.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: Sort of periods of eruption, and then it quiets down, and-
Scott Hammond: So our friend Laura's flying in two weeks-
Lori Dengler: Yeah
Scott Hammond: … to Iceland.
Lori Dengler: Uh-huh.
Scott Hammond: To Reykjavik.
Lori Dengler: Yeah. Well, when I flew in to Reykjavik, uh, last July, we were welcomed by a nice little plume-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … and we spent our first day driving all around the eruption site.
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow.
Lori Dengler: So it was, for both my husband and I are earth scientists, and so-
Scott Hammond: There you are in Iceland. Yeah
Lori Dengler: … uh, it was, it was heaven.
Lori Dengler: Absolutely.
Scott Hammond: I bet it's a really-
Lori Dengler: Abso- absolute heaven.
Scott Hammond: Everybody said it's amazing place.
Lori Dengler: It is.
Scott Hammond: Yeah, I wanna go. It's a bucket list thing. Let's go, let's go way back for a second.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: Tell me, where'd you grow up? Uh, what'd you do before you became fully educated at Berkeley?
Lori Dengler: I grew up in the Palm Springs area.
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: Uh, my parents had a guest ranch in Rancho Mirage, and I lived there from age four basically through high
Lori Dengler: school.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: And it was a very special place because in those
Lori Dengler: days there weren't very many people.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: And there was vast expanses
Lori Dengler: of desert.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And I was a horse kid. And-
Scott Hammond: Wow
Lori Dengler: … um, the guest ranch, we had our string of horses, and so I rode and rode and rode. I got to be a wild child in the desert.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: And there's something really wonderful about having that kind of freedom-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … to both observe the land-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … um, and appreciate it through different seasons and so forth.
Scott Hammond: I bet.
Lori Dengler: So, uh, I certainly never had any intention of going into science when I was, uh, in high school.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, science was for nerds, and I wasn't gonna be a nerd.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: Uh, but fortunately, I learned later that actually science is for the really cool folks. I had taken four years of math in high school 'cause I was good at math. I kept that a secret, but I was good at math. And so when I went to Berkeley as an undergraduate arriving in
Lori Dengler: 1964-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … just in time for the Free Speech Movement.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: Um, and that was an education in itself.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: I, uh,
Lori Dengler: uh, I, I dabbled in different majors. In those days, we were not allowed to declare a major until the beginning of our junior year. I think it's brilliant. I really wish it were still that way today.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Nowadays, we wanna jam people into a major as quickly as possible-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and spit them out the door as soon as we can.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: Uh, but in those days, it really was explore different things-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … in those first two years.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: And so I started out as a humanities field major. I was really interested in civilizations.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: But I hated classes with 2,000 people, and- … exams where you wrote as fast as you could in a blue book, and you thought you did well, and you got a C, and you thought you did crappy, and you got an A.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: So there was, like, this disconnect.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And then I was a journalism major for one semester-
Scott Hammond: Huh
Lori Dengler: … and had a wonderful, uh, teacher, an actual working reporter from San Francisco.
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow.
Lori Dengler: Um, uh, he was one of the better teachers I had, uh, but he pushed us to do things that made us very uncomfortable, like go and bargain for something in a market. And go and say something outrageous to someone on the street.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: The whole idea of being able to sort of push that journalistic envelope.
Scott Hammond: Comfort zone.
Lori Dengler: And I learned very quickly I did not want to be a
Lori Dengler: reporter.
Scott Hammond: Not gonna be.
Lori Dengler: Uh, but it's kind of interesting because now, of course, a lot of what I do is write for the Time Standards.
Lori Dengler: So-
Scott Hammond: Right
Lori Dengler: … uh, in a sense, I've, I've come back to that, but I don't have to go and be abusive to people on the street, fortunately.
Scott Hammond: So you can… So it's, you have your, your, your column, Not… It's Not My Fault. Is that correct?
Lori Dengler: It's Not My Fault-
Scott Hammond: So-
Lori Dengler: … which runs most Sundays-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … in the Time Standard.
Scott Hammond: And what do you write about there?
Lori Dengler: Well, I write about… Uh, sometimes there's an obvious news event, so a terrible earthquake in Japan-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … or in Turkey.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, so, but sometimes I'll write about something that just came out in the news-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … or in science. Uh, there was a real interesting, uh, paper couple of weeks ago studying the offshore of what we call the Cascadia Subduction Zone-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … Oregon and Washington.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: So I wrote a column on that.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, sometimes I write about historic things like, uh, uh, Inge Lehmann, the woman who discovered, uh, the Earth's inner core. Um-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … fascinating story. So-
Scott Hammond: Inge, was she Norwegian?
Lori Dengler: In- she was.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, um-
Scott Hammond: Go Norway.
Lori Dengler: Yep. Yep.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: And she was at a time when she actually ran the, uh, country's, uh, seismic laboratory.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: This was back in the 1920s.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: So it's, uh, a really extraordinary story. So, so any rate, back to Berkeley in the
Lori Dengler: 1960s-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … and I'm an undergrad, and I'm forced to take a science class.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, I took botany the first year, and the second year, I took the intro to geology.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And it just, 'cause it fit into my schedule Mm-hmm And that particular semester there was infighting going on in the geology department and Professor Howell Williams, brilliant vulcanologist, was on the outs with the current chair. Hmm. And he was forced to teach this intro course for non-majors. Hmm. And he had never taught it before, and it was his last semester of teaching, so it was definitely a punishment. And lots of stuff like that goes on in academia. But for me, it was fabulous- Mm-hmm … because he taught the course exactly how he would've taught the majors course. Huh. And it was real, and it was fascinating. And he started out by saying, "You know, geology's a science, but it's as much an art form as it is a science." Wow. "And if you don't appreciate the aesthetics of the earth-" Mm-hmm "… and of what you're looking at, this is not the field for you." And it was like, "Oh, wow." Art. "Oh, wow. Art-" Cool. Cool "… and science together." And this was also the dawn of the era of plate tectonics- Mm … when people were still debating whether or not the outer part of our Earth is in constant motion. And it was just fabulous. Hmm. And then to add a little bit of excitement to it, I got a real crush on my teaching assistant. And so I- Oh, wow … had to come up with good questions- Yeah … to go and talk to him in his office hours. Of course. And there's nothing like being forced to ask questions about something to get yourself hooked. Right. So many years later, when I taught intro geology- Mm-hmm … one of the exercises I often had was to have people look at something and then ask me a question about it. Hmm. Because asking a question is really one of the most fundamental things you can do- Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … in education. So- Get, get curious … any rate- Mm … I, uh, thought, "Wow, this is so much more satisfying- Hmm … than these other courses."
Lori Dengler: And so I talked to the department and they said, well, at that time they didn't recommend that women go into geology. Mm-hmm. Because they didn't allow women to attend summer field camp. Wow. Summer field camp was the capstone course. Hmm. And it still is, as it is here, um, because you've got to go out in the field and be able to map the stuff and make up a story. And live out in the woods, yeah. Well, right. Yeah. Of course. And so, but they said, uh, there I think in, there had been one or two women who had actually gotten degrees, but they had had to go elsewhere- Oh … to go to field camp, and they strongly discouraged it. Huh. Um, but geophysics, they said, "Oh, that's fine. You can be a geophys- geophysicist." And I thought, "Oh, well, that sounds pretty cool. Geophysist. Geophysics, here I come." And it required, of course, a lot of math and a lot of physics. In fact, a lot more math and physics than geology courses. I only took two or three geology courses. But it was great. It was, um,
Lori Dengler: so I was kind of my junior year trying to decide between being an art history major and being a geophysics major. Hmm. And I figured the odds of getting a curatorship at the Prado were probably pretty small.
Lori Dengler: So, um, a- any rate, that's how I got into geophysics. Huh. And fortunately it fit me well. Mm-hmm. I, I was never, I, I didn't love math, but I could do it. Mm-hmm. I didn't love physics, but I could do it. Mm-hmm. Um, and I really liked the whole tectonics aspect of, of geology a- and,
Lori Dengler: and sort of beginning at the same time our whole understanding of how the Earth's system works. Mm-hmm. Um, so I slipped into that, and then I slipped into a graduate prog- I didn't really wanna go to graduate school- Mm-hmm … but everyone said I should do it, so I did it. Hmm. And I ended up getting into rock mechanics and scanning electron microscopy and- Any rate, um- Oh, wow … it was just sort of, uh, these different opportunities kept opening up. Wow. And then- And you, yeah, you did go to field camp? No. Oh, you didn't? You don't, you don't do field camp- You didn't st- … in geophysics. Okay. Gotcha. No, that… Geophysics doesn't really deal with rocks per se. We're, we're dealing with the deeper part of the Earth. We're dealing with seismology and geomagnetics and the shape of the Earth.
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm. Uh, bigger scale- Okay … kinds of things. Okay. And so, uh, I, I've actually taught more different geology courses than I actually took- Okay … as, as a student. That's good. That's wonderful.
Lori Dengler: But, uh,
Lori Dengler: it was, uh, it, it was good, and Berkeley in those days was the perfect place for me. Hmm. And so, uh, I was very fortunate to come up to Humboldt. Mm-hmm. Uh, my husband had gotten a job. He got his degree about two years before I did. Mm-hmm. So he got a job first working for Redwood National Park, and then working- Oh … with the Forest Service- Hmm … the research arm of the Forest Service in Arcata. And he got to know the whole geology crowd up here and sort of helped get me that first temporary job and- Wow. So we've just been very fortunate, um- Sure … because Humboldt is about the best place on Earth to be- I agree …
Lori Dengler: into surface processesGeology, which is what my husband
Lori Dengler: does.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And active tectonics, earthquakes, and tsunamis-
Scott Hammond: Right
Lori Dengler: … which is what I do.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: So, uh, we just could not have found a more perfect landing spot.
Scott Hammond: I was gonna say ground zero, but I don't know if I wanna say that.
Scott Hammond: Um, so back to Berkeley real quick, and then I wanna go forward into tectonics, 'cause that- that's, all that… That's a relatively new field based at when you were starting, right?
Lori Dengler: Well, it's a, it's a field that, I mean, the, the idea of tectonics has been around really since the 19th century.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, because the only way you can create this complex layered
Lori Dengler: world-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … is by moving stuff around.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: I mean, we know there are faults. I mean, we experience earthquakes, and we see things, and w-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and we see these spectacular folds out in the field, and-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … we see young rocks, uh, with a huge gap in time over much older ones.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: Sometimes we see really old rocks on top of younger rocks.
Scott Hammond: Go figure.
Lori Dengler: So there's a lot going on. So even before we had this global
Lori Dengler: perspective-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … we now call plate tectonics, and that really starts in the
Lori Dengler: 1960s.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, and it's still being refined.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, I mean, it's, it, it's a, it's a model for the whole Earth system-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … but it doesn't give you all the details. And, and tectonics is basically just a fancy word of saying the forces that shape the Earth.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, where do they come from? How do Earth materials respond, and what are, of course, the consequences for humans-
Scott Hammond: Right
Lori Dengler: … which are enormous. I mean, we owe everything to geology. Without geology-
Scott Hammond: Don't you forget it, folks
Lori Dengler: … we wouldn't, we would, we would not be here.
Scott Hammond: So we have a triple subduction zone. Is that what it's called off patrol-
Lori Dengler: Well, we-
Scott Hammond: … patrol air? There's three plates?
Lori Dengler: When, when we talk about plate tectonics, the simple view
Lori Dengler: is that most of the exciting things that are happening on the planet, like the earthquakes, the volcanic areas, the, the current active mountain building zones-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … are restricted to relatively narrow parts of the Earth's surface. And that leaves much of the planet relatively quiet-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … tectonically, in terms of those forces.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And the plate tectonic model says, you know, kind of imagine that we have a somewhat, not quite fully hard-boiled egg, and the outermost shell is broken into 12 major pieces. There are some s- minor pieces as well.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: But the white directly underneath
Lori Dengler: the shell-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … is not completely solid. It's not molten-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … but it's able to slowly move.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: Kind of like molasses. And so these shells, these 12 or so major
Lori Dengler: shells, are able to move relative to one another. In some places, they spread apart-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … as they're doing in the middle of the Atlantic-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … with Europe and North America and Africa and South America moving further apart all the time
Lori Dengler: as we s-
Scott Hammond: That's measurable, yeah
Lori Dengler: … sit here. And we can measure that. In other areas, they're colliding together.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, we've got the Himalayas, where-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … the Indian subcontinent began that collision maybe 45 million years ago, and it's slowed down maybe half as much as it's still plowing in. And of course-
Scott Hammond: So we can measure-
Lori Dengler: Oh, yes
Scott Hammond: … measure Everest-
Lori Dengler: Oh, yeah
Scott Hammond: … and see it's getting bigger.
Lori Dengler: And-
Scott Hammond: Huh
Lori Dengler: … that's where we have the highest mountains on Earth. And then we have other major mountain chains, like the-
Scott Hammond: And then underwater
Lori Dengler: … Andes.
Scott Hammond: And then s- ocean bottom.
Lori Dengler: Right. So we have these zones where one of these pieces of the eggshell is being pushed into another or being pulled underneath.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: That's our setting right here. So if I were to drill straight down from where we're sitting, about eight miles beneath our feet, we'd hit the top of one of these other plates that's being pulled by gravity beneath us. It surfaces offshore, uh, roughly 40 miles off the coast here.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: And as I say, it's about eight miles here. By the time you get to Willow Creek, closer to 12 miles. By the time you get to Mount Shasta, it's about 60
Lori Dengler: miles.
Scott Hammond: And how many miles, how, how deep would it be in the ocean? Are you saying it's exposed?
Lori Dengler: Well, as I say, it's, it hits the surface.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: It's this great dipping ramp.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: So it's, it covers, at one point, it covered much of the Pacific Ocean. Now that ridge is only about 180 miles off the coast-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … where it's being created.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: We call that the Gorda Ridge.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: But so w- we're in one of these areas of compression we refer to as a subduction zone.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And then we have places where the two plates are basically moving horizontally-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … like cars on the freeway.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: A good example of that is the San Andreas-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … plate system, plate boundary system, where the stuff to the west is moving to the northwest relative to the rest of North America.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: So these major plate boundaries, whether we have spreading or rifting, whether we have subduction or colliding together-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … or side by side, define the boundaries of these
Lori Dengler: 12 major zones, plates-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … where things within them are relatively quiet.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: Um-In some places, we have two plates in contact, like along the San Andreas fault zone.
Scott Hammond: Sure.
Lori Dengler: There are a few places where we actually have three plates in contact. We call that a triple junction.
Scott Hammond: And that's right off the shore right here on the map.
Lori Dengler: And we have a triple junction, um, in the vicinity of Cape Mendocino.
Scott Hammond: Right down there.
Lori Dengler: And it's not a point. You think of it more as a large zone. If you put a pin in Petrolia and dr- drew maybe a 20-mile arc around it, and again, the boundary's not sharp, um, that's where we have these three plates in contact.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: Now, there are some places on the planet that have four plates in contact. Yay, Japan.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: Which is one of the reasons that Japan has so much going on.
Scott Hammond: Lots.
Lori Dengler: Um, but the triple junction is interesting tectonically. Uh, it's certainly very important in terms of the evolution of California, the California
Lori Dengler: coast.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: At that triple junction, roughly 40 million years ago, didn't exist at all.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: We were just a huge subduction zone along the entire coast.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And then a ridge hit the subduction zone, and the San Andreas Fault was born-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … in the vicinity of 38 or so million years ago. And since then, it's been slowly growing. So 10 million years ago, it was roughly in the vicinity of the San Francisco Bay
Lori Dengler: Area.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: It arrived up in our neck of the woods, eh, couple million
Lori Dengler: years ago.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And 20 million years from now, it's gonna be somewhere in Oregon.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: And we will no longer have a triple junction here. We'll be part of the San Andreas system.
Scott Hammond: Interesting.
Lori Dengler: So i- one of the things you have to realize with a geologic per- perspective is that nothing ever stays the same.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: It's constantly changing.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And those changes affect
Lori Dengler: the, uh, the distribution of oceans and continents.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: That affects the flow, the currents within the oceans. It affects climate.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: Um, so we've certainly had periods in the past where the climate was much hotter than what it is
Lori Dengler: today.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, and some of those seem to be associated with times where all the continents were basically in one huge supercontinent.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And the ocean flow, uh, it wa- everything else was pretty much ocean.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, um, that seems to be a scenario that creates very hot-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … has created-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … hot climates in the past.
Scott Hammond: Did you ever work with Dr. Richard Stepp? Did you know-
Lori Dengler: I knew Dick Stepp
Scott Hammond: … Dick Stepp.
Lori Dengler: I knew him quite well.
Scott Hammond: What a great guy.
Lori Dengler: Uh, I actually taught briefly in the physics I re- I taught a physics lab-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … uh, one semester. But, uh, no, Dick was, uh, very, always very supportive.
Scott Hammond: He taught us weather in, in cluster programs.
Lori Dengler: Yes.
Scott Hammond: It was great.
Lori Dengler: Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Hammond: He said something really profound. He was talking about the jet stream, and he had a rope, and a-
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm
Scott Hammond: … big, his analogy was this, uh, big map of the US, and he moved the rope north and south, and he said… Somebody said, um, "W- what, what causes the weather, Dr. Stepp?" And he said he thought, and he goes, "The weather causes itself." I'll never, ever forget that.
Scott Hammond: He was-
Lori Dengler: Well
Scott Hammond: … ter- terrific. Terrific at… I don't know if it's accurate, but he was a lovely guy.
Lori Dengler: Well, I suppose the weather definitely affects the weather, but what causes the weather is the fact that we have the sun, we have a planet-
Scott Hammond: Tides
Lori Dengler: … we live on.
Scott Hammond: Yeah. Ocean.
Lori Dengler: The part near the equator is hot. The part at the poles are cold.
Scott Hammond: And then there's weather.
Lori Dengler: We have a rotating body. That means that we don't get nice, simple convection from the equator to the pole, because that's what we want to do, is move the hot air to the cold, heat the cold up.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Because the planet rotates, it ends up
Lori Dengler: twisting-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … these convective cycles into a series of
Lori Dengler: zones.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, no surprise that the equatorial zone is wet and warm, but at about 30 degrees north and south, it's very
Lori Dengler: dry.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: So if you look at the great deserts-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … um, in the southwest, and you look at the Sahara-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … they're in that classic dry zone-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … um, because of these convective cycles.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And up here, we're in the Roaring Forties-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … where we get some of the most consistent big winds
Lori Dengler: again.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: So yeah, weather causes weather, but-
Scott Hammond: There's some other stuff
Lori Dengler: … rotation-
Lori Dengler: … and the sun and the position of the Earth are really
Lori Dengler: important.
Scott Hammond: I was gonna do a shout-out to Dick. I, I'm not sure if he's ali- Is he still living? I know he was at Philbrook for many years.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: I, I actually-
Scott Hammond: Terrific guy.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: He was, he was my guy that got me excited about weather-
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm
Scott Hammond: … and education.
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm.
Scott Hammond: 'Cause when he talked, he would squeak a little.
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm.
Scott Hammond: He got r- he, he got real pitchy, and he would get real excited. He was a fun guy to learn under. Real quick, going back to Berkeley with you,
Scott Hammond: um, what, what was going on outside of the classroom that, that caught your attention or that you remember? Was there-
Lori Dengler: Well-
Scott Hammond: It was crazy days, right?
Lori Dengler: As I say, 1964, I'm 17.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: A freshman, and coming down to one of my classes, um, and there's this row of Oakland police in full
Lori Dengler: riot gear-
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow
Lori Dengler: … preventing me from getting into the classroom. That was the first I had any idea of what was going on.
Scott Hammond: Huh.
Lori Dengler: I mean, what you have to realize is that-The whole free speech movement was born of a very
Lori Dengler: tiny event-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … that was, that escalated because of the way the administration handled it.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: So there were a group of very active students, and in those days, uh, uh, s- SNCC, the Students for Democratic,
Lori Dengler: uh, Society, and there were a number of other organizations that were really big in, um, going to the South and the integration issues and so forth. And they had a little table set up in Sproul Hall, raising money and trying to get volunteers-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … involved.
Scott Hammond: Sure.
Lori Dengler: And most of the students were just like me and walked right on past, paid no
Lori Dengler: attention.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: I was trying to decide whether I was going to pledge a sorority that
Lori Dengler: fall. I did not. It was not my thing.
Lori Dengler: But any rate, the campus, um, decided they had to be evicted, and, and, um, as a result, the police presence on campus and, and yada, yada, yada.
Lori Dengler: Uh, and so w- what the response did was you took 26,000 students who were generally apathetic-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … and in 24 hours, you radical- radicalized them.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: And so, um, very quickly, every- I lived in a dorm.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And everybody in the dorm was… I mean, not everybody, but almost everybody was suddenly very, very supportive of what, what, what was going on. And Mario Savio was very eloquent, and I actually got to know him later on. I was one of the few people that had a car. I had a little Volkswagen, uh, Beetle, a fi- '58 Volkswagen Beetle.
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow.
Lori Dengler: And I became a driver for the Free Speech Movement, and I would drive Mario Savio and other people around because very few people, a very few students in those days had
Lori Dengler: cars.
Scott Hammond: Sure.
Lori Dengler: And then I got to know his ex-wife many years later, and his son because our kids were at, uh, uh, in a daycare center
Lori Dengler: together.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And I continued to be friends with her.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: So, um, but, uh,
Lori Dengler: it was, it was kind of like, uh, uh, everyone wanted to volunteer to do something.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And it was like doing laundry for Mario Savio, like Pieces of the True Cloth, uh-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … Cross. You couldn't believe how much laundry was being done-
Lori Dengler: … in the dormitories, uh, because everyone thought they
Lori Dengler: were washing Mario Savio's clothes.
Lori Dengler: Uh
Scott Hammond: So, so he was a key, he was a key leader in the free speech-
Lori Dengler: He was, he was a key leader. Uh, he became the real spokesperson.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Very, very eloquent.
Scott Hammond: Interesting.
Lori Dengler: And I met a number of the other people involved who were not at all impressive. I mean, s- Mario was a real
Lori Dengler: idealist.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And he was chewed to pieces in later years.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, whereas a number of the other people, let's just say I would not have wanted to hang out with them-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … because they were just into agitating. That was all they wanted to do.
Scott Hammond: Pretty big difference, yeah.
Lori Dengler: A real big difference.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And so it… That was perhaps the biggest education of my freshman year-
Scott Hammond: Huh
Lori Dengler: … was learning to recognize the difference between a true
Lori Dengler: idealist –
Scott Hammond: Right
Lori Dengler: … and an agitator.
Scott Hammond: Yeah. If, if time allowed, I'd love to hear your perspective on-
Lori Dengler: Sure
Scott Hammond: … the occupation a few months ago, but I, I don't wanna really go there quite, quite yet. It, it's-
Lori Dengler: And I don't have very much to say about it
Scott Hammond: … there's, uh, yeah, it's, it's-
Lori Dengler: I'm not, I, you know, I'm not on campus.
Scott Hammond: So l- bringing it home to Humboldt, and your, your mission personally is to educate us, the
Scott Hammond: populace, uh, your community, and telling us about, hey, um, tsunami and earthquake preparedness. What, what does that look like? So you, you put together this tsunami pr- uh, prepared- preparedness program with a team.
Lori Dengler: With a team. It's very important to mention our-
Scott Hammond: And then they replicate, they've replicated this up and down the coast?
Lori Dengler: A lot of it. You know, we're, we're very fortunate, again, our little Goldilocks county-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … for many reasons. And when it comes to earthquakes and tsunamis, first of all, we
Lori Dengler: have them.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: So we have more earthquakes, more large
Lori Dengler: earthquakes-
Scott Hammond: And opportunities
Lori Dengler: … and more tsunamis-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … than any other part of the lower 48 states. We also have no big research institute here.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: We don't have a USGS research station here. We don't have a Research 1 university here.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: We're pretty much kind of on our own.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And up until, I'd say, really only the last decade or so-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … there hasn't been a whole lot of interest in, from outside geologists in our area-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … which I've always wondered about 'cause it's the most fascinating place on the
Lori Dengler: planet-
Scott Hammond: A puzzlement, yeah
Lori Dengler: … as far as I'm… But we don't have a lot of people.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: So, but eventually, you know, we… The last two people to die in a California earthquake were in our December 2022 earthquake. Uh, those were not related to ground shaking. Those were people who were probably scared to death, whose-
Scott Hammond: They had heart attacks, right?
Lori Dengler: Yes.
Scott Hammond: Corner.
Lori Dengler: They had, um… And s- and that often happens in earthquakes, is that they can be very, very frightening as-
Scott Hammond: But they're fatalities attributed to the earthquake.
Lori Dengler: Th- they are considered earthquake-related fatalities. So when you look at the list, you'll see the
Lori Dengler: two.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: The two most recent.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, but, uh, IWhat I have found with studying disasters, and certainly earthquakes and tsunamis in particular, and I've traveled all over the world. I've studied, uh, tsunamis in Papua New Guinea, earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan-
Scott Hammond: Wow
Lori Dengler: … in Indonesia, uh, in Peru and Chile and Samoa. So it, it kind of takes me right back to my original interest when I was an undergrad at Berkeley, which is civilizations. How do civilizations function?
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And there's nothing like a disaster to really show you how a civilization functions-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … or does not.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: So you look at, uh… I mean, the, the, the Chile earthquake, magnitude 7.8, uh, in, uh, 2010, February 2010.
Scott Hammond: That was a big one.
Lori Dengler: It was a huge earthquake.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, over 17 million people experienced very strong ground shaking.
Scott Hammond: How many deaths?
Lori Dengler: And the total number of deaths in that earthquake was roughly 500.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, and of those, um, about a fifth, uh, were related to tsunami.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: But when you look at the size of that
Lori Dengler: earthquake, uh, the s- the area of really strong ground shaking-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … it was impressive how well the country performed.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And I was there two weeks afterwards, and almost all the highways were already open. I mean, they were, they were damaged.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Interesting thing about that is in Chile, they really rely… Their, their highway, their interstate sort of-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … system is all privatized.
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: And there's this incentive for the company, I mean, they're all toll roads-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … uh, to get them functioning as fast as possible.
Scott Hammond: Quickly as you can.
Lori Dengler: They're insured.
Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.
Lori Dengler: And as I said, two weeks afterwards, almost all the roads we could drive on. They weren't charging tolls because the roads weren't perfectly in great shape.
Scott Hammond: But the franchise had to come back online.
Lori Dengler: Right.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Exactly. But, but that was…
Lori Dengler: But, but the lesson from that was
Lori Dengler: how having, being a first world country, and Chile is very much like being in Southern California.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: The architecture, the, the climate. It, it's a wonderful place.
Scott Hammond: I've heard it's great.
Lori Dengler: It's absolutely a wonderful place.
Scott Hammond: Were you in Santiago?
Lori Dengler: Uh, well, we flew in and out of Santiago.
Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.
Lori Dengler: But I was mainly on the coast, 'cause we were mainly studying the tsunami.
Scott Hammond: Is it down the coast where they had the-
Lori Dengler: Well, the earthquake was centered just offshore-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … um, in, uh, Biobio region.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And so Constitución was the city, perhaps the largest city close, closest to the, uh… Concepción, um, and Constitución were two of the cities that were pretty close. But it was a huge, long rupture.
Lori Dengler: It was-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … more than 100 miles long.
Scott Hammond: Wow. Wow.
Lori Dengler: And so, uh, yeah, people get this idea that earthquake's a spot, 'cause you see the epicenter on a m- map. Once you get to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, forget the
Lori Dengler: spot.
Scott Hammond: It's more like a tear.
Lori Dengler: It's, it's… So our 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the spot was roughly where the Golden Gate Bridge is, just offshore of that.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: But it ruptured from Santa Cruz all the way to Cape Mendocino.
Scott Hammond: Rad.
Lori Dengler: And so the source is really that whole area. There's nothing about the spot where it begins-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … that means the shaking is any stronger there. In fact, we had some of the strongest shaking anywhere on that whole rupture zone-
Scott Hammond: How big, how, how-
Lori Dengler: … back in 1906
Scott Hammond: … how big was that one?
Lori Dengler: We now call it a 7.9.
Scott Hammond: Wow. So-
Lori Dengler: So roughly an 8.0.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: So, uh, any rate, um, I just find that how communities deal with
Lori Dengler: issues-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and certainly, uh, natural disasters are an important one.
Scott Hammond: It defines them.
Lori Dengler: It is a real sign of how healthy you are.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, uh, i- if you read Jared Diamond's Collapse, you'll find that natural disasters are often the trigger for collapse.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, we've certainly in our time seen that in Haiti-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … that Haiti was certainly-
Scott Hammond: Right
Lori Dengler: … dysfunctional before 2010.
Scott Hammond: And then real bad.
Lori Dengler: But the 2010
Lori Dengler: earthquake-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … really just pulled, uh, the rug out from under the
Lori Dengler: country.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: So it's, it really behooves us to understand our hazards.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And it's our responsibility-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … as res- as individuals, uh, as communities, as counties-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … um, to be very actively involved in what we now call resilience.
Scott Hammond: S- speaking of which-
Lori Dengler: Yes
Scott Hammond: … um, you brought me some of the, your magazines, The Shaky Ground.
Lori Dengler: I did.
Scott Hammond: Thank, thank you for these.
Lori Dengler: Yep. Yep.
Scott Hammond: Tell us, um… I guess the $2 question is, so I'll just pick on Joanie and I, how can we as a family, as a couple, in McKinleyville, it's right up there on the map-
Lori Dengler: Right
Scott Hammond: … how do we get involved? How do we become part of the solution and the reaction that's positive, not if, but when this is gonna happen, tsunami or earthquake in Humboldt?
Lori Dengler: Well, the good news is the first step is really easy.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And-
Scott Hammond: I like easy
Lori Dengler: … I know this because social scientists have really studied what motivates people to actually take action.And step one is you need to talk about it.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: So the very first thing you need to do is you and Joanie need to talk about,
Lori Dengler: okay, what-
Scott Hammond: What if-
Lori Dengler: … what are our hazards?
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And so this little magazine-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … is a really nice primer for how to go about it. There's something that we call the Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … which starts out with having the talk
Lori Dengler: and thinking about what, what are your special circumstances. Do you have an elderly or
Lori Dengler: disabled-
Scott Hammond: Oh, great
Lori Dengler: … or person living in your home? Do you have somebody who needs a power
Lori Dengler: supply?
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, do you have a ranch? Do you have livestock? Do you have animals?
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: Um, what are your sort of personal, uh, circumstances? Uh, then what are your hazards? So okay, do I live in a tsunami zone? Do I not live in a tsunami zone? If you don't live in a tsunami zone, you don't really need to worry about evacuating unless-
Scott Hammond: We have, we have maps for that here. We can put-
Lori Dengler: We do have maps, but the maps won't save you.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: You need to be aware.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, we call it situational awareness.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, and this is true for life in our modern world. You need to have your feelers out for, okay, is there kind of a sketchy situation developing up ahead? Maybe I don't wanna walk that way.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Um, well, it's the same thing with hazards.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, and it's not just for earthquakes and tsunamis. Right now it's fire weather.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: And it's really important to, uh, pay attention, uh, to be able to be contacted. Now, in almost all of California counties, there is an emergency notification system.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: But it doesn't happen automatically.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: You need to sign up for it. And right now we have this fire that's developed in southern Humboldt County.
Scott Hammond: Heard about that.
Lori Dengler: Um, you're not gonna get a WEA alert, wireless emergency alert, on your phone for that because it's a localized area.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: But if you live in Alder Point or Garberville or any of those communities-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … you wanna know, you wanna make sure that you get notified, and signing up for that notification
Lori Dengler: system-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … being aware of which local radio stations.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: Um, KMUD is wonderful-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … especially for fire season-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and, um, southern Humboldt.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: But KMUD, uh, they've done a great job.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: KHSU was once great.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Forget it. They don't do anything anymore.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: So, uh, you know, being aware-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … of, uh, of what, and, and, and knowing how to scan, you know-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … your dial.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, but signing up for that emergency notification doesn't cost you anything.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: You can put up to six different contact, like if you want, uh, notifications for where your children's school is or where your parents
Lori Dengler: live-
Scott Hammond: Oh, that's neat
Lori Dengler: … or where your working place is, you can get notifications for more than one location.
Scott Hammond: Technology.
Lori Dengler: Uh, you do need to update it-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … because of course once you've changed your phone
Lori Dengler: number, um, then they're not gonna keep-
Scott Hammond: Can't find you.
Lori Dengler: But, but that's one of those things that-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … is, is really, it's a lot harder to get people to pay attention nowadays-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … than it was 30, 40 years ago.
Scott Hammond: Mm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, because we all listen to different media channels.
Scott Hammond: A lot of voices.
Lori Dengler: And, uh, some people don't listen to anything at all.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: And especially in the more remote areas-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … of the county.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: It's really important. You need to know if a fire is developing, and you need to be prepared-
Scott Hammond: Hmm
Lori Dengler: … to get out of there.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: You don't ever wait till the last minute.
Lori Dengler: Um-
Scott Hammond: Fire's a great, great ign- great example.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: So I, I wanna know a little bit about you. So usually I have, this is the part of the show where I have a hotel bell, and I ring, ring my bell, but my producer has, uh, hid my bell. So I wanna know-
Lori Dengler: Ding, ding, ding.
Scott Hammond: Ding, ding, there, thank you. The part of the show where we find out about what Lori
Scott Hammond: likes, and, uh, just off the top of your head, don't overthink it if you wanna take a pass, do it. So you've traveled the world. Question number one, you've traveled the world, top three countries you'd love to go back to.
Lori Dengler: Oh, that's easy.
Scott Hammond: Or cities.
Lori Dengler: France.
Scott Hammond: I think I'm gonna get a bell here in a minute.
Lori Dengler: France, Iceland, uh, oh, and probably somewhere in South America-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … would be, would be the top, top three that-
Scott Hammond: So-
Lori Dengler: … that I would-
Scott Hammond: Ch- Chile, uh, that, that-
Lori Dengler: I mean, Japan, uh, Japan I've been to so
Lori Dengler: often. I should include Japan as well.
Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.
Lori Dengler: I've to- have had 11 trips to Japan.
Lori Dengler: Um-
Scott Hammond: I have a bell now.
Lori Dengler: Oh, good. And,
Lori Dengler: um, I feel like it's not a second home, but certainly the
Lori Dengler: closest-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … thing to,
Lori Dengler: uh, a- another place abroad. Um, but, uh, I love to travel. My family had a tour
Lori Dengler: business.
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow.
Lori Dengler: Uh, and I sort of grew up with this sense of the importance of travel.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: It, that the family business started out as, uh, bicycling tours for young people-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … in Europe in the 1930s.
Scott Hammond: How cool is that?
Lori Dengler: And, uh, I took one of those tours in 19- Summer of '64, a bicycle tour
Lori Dengler: of Europe.
Scott Hammond: Where'd you… All over Europe?
Lori Dengler: All over Europe.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Three months. And so-
Scott Hammond: We, we leave for Amsterdam in 10 days.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: Where there's lots of bikes.
Lori Dengler: Oh, yes.
Scott Hammond: All, all over.
Lori Dengler: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Hammond: U- U- Ut- Utrecht.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: And we're gonna go down to Ga- Hey, uh, question number two. Uh, the best meal you've had in your travels. Or- One of them.
Lori Dengler: Ah, Japan, 2016.
Scott Hammond: Oh, wow.
Lori Dengler: Nagoya.
Scott Hammond: There's a date.
Lori Dengler: Uh, w- I had been invited to be the keynote speaker at the National Museum, the Tokyo National Museum's five-year remembrance of
Lori Dengler: the tsunami.
Scott Hammond: Oh, right.
Lori Dengler: And it was wonderful. I got this paid trip to Japan, and, um, I was primarily talking about the boat Kamome, this little boat that beached in Crescent City.
Scott Hammond: Right.
Lori Dengler: And through the efforts of many people, and I played a small role in it, it was returned to Japan, and it connected these two communities that are now sister cities.
Scott Hammond: Wow.
Lori Dengler: I- it's an absolutely fabulous story, but we were in Nagoya, and, um, walking. We had done a five-day hike with dear friends, um, in, um, w- one of these traditional, um, pilgrimage trails near Kyoto, and on the way back, as I said, we had this one night, and we were just trying to figure out, where are we going to eat?
Lori Dengler: And we see this sign in Japanese that had a- all sorts of
Lori Dengler: fish on it.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And with an arrow. And so there was this tiny little restaurant two floors up
Lori Dengler: that was
Lori Dengler: fish.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: You name it. And I don't think a Caucasian had ever been into this restaurant before.
Scott Hammond: Hmm. Wow.
Lori Dengler: But we just stumbled up there, and it was the most incredible two hours of our
Lori Dengler: lives-
Scott Hammond: Oh
Lori Dengler: … where they kept bringing us one thing after another after-
Scott Hammond: Try this
Lori Dengler: … and there was one thing where they would bring all the fish, uh, where you'd choose your fish for-
Scott Hammond: Lovely
Lori Dengler: … for one of the courses. And any rate, um, I don't think I'll ever have a meal that will, uh-
Scott Hammond: That sounds magical
Lori Dengler: … beat, beat that ever again.
Scott Hammond: Sounds really good.
Lori Dengler: Although there have been a number of others that have been, um… Yeah, we had a pretty great closing party at Tisa's Tattoo Bar in Samoa.
Lori Dengler: It was-
Scott Hammond: Wow, that sounds good
Lori Dengler: … pretty remarkable as well.
Scott Hammond: Huh. At a tattoo bar.
Lori Dengler: Well, it, this, this particular was kind of, it was a little informal
Lori Dengler: resort-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … um, that also specialized in traditional Samoan tattoos.
Scott Hammond: Ah.
Lori Dengler: So I did not get a tattoo. But, um, it, it was, uh, uh, it was a wonderful, wonderful place to be.
Scott Hammond: That sounds great. Okay. You've done good on two questions so far. Question number three. If you have a day in Humboldt, where do you, where do you wanna go hiking?
Lori Dengler: Well, of course that depends on what the weather's doing.
Scott Hammond: Okay. That's weather de- fair enough.
Lori Dengler: Weather, weather dependent. I mean, I do go hiking every
Lori Dengler: single day-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … in Humboldt County, because I have a border collie.
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: And Pip has to go for a walk, and we're in a wonderful dog-walking group.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Uh, so there's anywhere between three to 12 of us on a typical day's walk.
Scott Hammond: That's a lot of people, yeah.
Lori Dengler: And today, and dogs, and today was a Mullet walk.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, yesterday was in Blue Lake. I mean, we walk all over the place.
Scott Hammond: Very nice.
Lori Dengler: And so, um, it, it's, it's definitely something I do every day.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: But, but I certainly have a number of real favorite walks.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Um, I love going inland when it's not too hot. Uh, up to Cold Spring off of Titlow Hill
Lori Dengler: Road-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … is wonderful. Uh, Lax Creek is a fabulous place to go.
Scott Hammond: Reese Hughes likes that place.
Lori Dengler: Yes.
Scott Hammond: I would-
Lori Dengler: Well, Reese was the one-
Scott Hammond: He would know
Lori Dengler: … that's Reese's, Reese and Amy were the ones we went on that pilgrimage walk with-
Scott Hammond: Oh, huh. Cool
Lori Dengler: … in Japan, so.
Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool.
Lori Dengler: So, uh, so that's wonderful. Uh, the Ahsoogon Trail up in Prairie Creek, I remember there.
Scott Hammond: Is the one in Tit- Titlow Hill again?
Lori Dengler: Uh, Cold Spring.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: And that's, oh, that's absolutely wonderful.
Lori Dengler: Uh-
Scott Hammond: Is it off of 299 as you go up?
Lori Dengler: Yeah, you take Titlow Hill Road.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And then you just keep driving. You'll, it, it… Google Maps has it.
Scott Hammond: Sure.
Lori Dengler: You just do Go- Cold Spring. And, um, there's a little, take a little turn off the road and-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Is there a creek?
Scott Hammond: Or-
Lori Dengler: Uh, yes, there is. There's a spring.
Scott Hammond: There's an actual spring.
Lori Dengler: That's why it's called Cold Spring.
Scott Hammond: Imagine that. Not like Blue Lake-
Lori Dengler: It is
Scott Hammond: … where there is no lake
Lori Dengler: … but, but there's also, uh, these beautiful, um, big knockers, these rocks.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: Uh, that lots of time you'll see climbers there working, working on them, and-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … beautiful wildflowers. A fabulous view, uh, looking down, uh-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … Redwood Creek Valley and-
Scott Hammond: I love it
Lori Dengler: … so yes, that's one of the things about, uh, Humboldt County is that-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … there are so many world-class hikes within 45 minutes. Um, you know, Bald Hills.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Again, fabulous.
Scott Hammond: Yep.
Lori Dengler: Uh, so
Scott Hammond: What's the trail all the way up Bald Hills Li- is it, is it Lyons?
Lori Dengler: There's Lyons Ranch.
Scott Hammond: Ranch, yeah.
Lori Dengler: But there are a number of other trails-
Scott Hammond: Yeah
Lori Dengler: … sort of the, if you go past the Lyons Ranch Trail-
Scott Hammond: Mm
Lori Dengler: … there's a- another-
Scott Hammond: We like the Redwood Creek r- uh, Trail that we did. We did it last week.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: Uh, the, the real flat one that goes up to the creek.
Lori Dengler: Yeah.
Scott Hammond: And it was just lovely.
Lori Dengler: Oh, yeah.
Scott Hammond: Yeah.
Lori Dengler: Yeah, that's beautiful.
Scott Hammond: Then Jody's been hiking behind, um, the Simpson or the Green Diamond land behind McKinleyville.
Lori Dengler: Mm-hmm.
Scott Hammond: They just opened that up.
Lori Dengler: Right, the community forest.
Scott Hammond: Yeah. She says that's really fun and-
Lori Dengler: Yeah
Scott Hammond: … a lot, a lot of, not a lot of use quite yet.
Lori Dengler: Right.
Scott Hammond: Which is great. Oh, and the Hammond Trail, named after my great-great-great-grandfather- … Jedediah Hammond. Somebody's gonna go, "I wanna fact check that."
Lori Dengler: Uh-huh.
Scott Hammond: Well, uh, any parting shots? What, what, what do we wanna have, what do you have on your gravestone? What do you, what do you want them to say at your, your, your celebration-
Lori Dengler: Well
Scott Hammond: … of life? What would you like to be known for?
Lori Dengler: Well, I hope that people will smile. Uh, I, I n- I sometimes have my reputation, I mean, I, I remember back in '92 after the '92 quakes, uh, people would sort of see me and go, "Oh no, there comes the
Lori Dengler: earthquake."
Scott Hammond: Oh.
Lori Dengler: And I'm going, "Eh, no it's not, I'm not an earthquake and that's not my fault."
Scott Hammond: Just the messenger.
Lori Dengler: Um, but, uh, really the, the, the bottom line is community matters.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And the health of the community matters.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, especially in disasters, but even when there aren't disasters.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And we are social creatures. Uh, we have e- evolved a kind of asocial way of living.
Scott Hammond: Hmm.
Lori Dengler: And so every opportunity to sort of break down the silos-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … uh, and you'll feel better for doing so.
Scott Hammond: That's a good word.
Lori Dengler: And you'll be safer in the next earthquake.
Scott Hammond: I like that. Well, anything, any words on your, your gravestone?
Lori Dengler: I probably won't have one, so.
Scott Hammond: Okay. Had several people that say they want a, not-
Lori Dengler: Blow, blowing, blowing in the wind.
Scott Hammond: There you go. I love it. Well, thanks for coming, Lori. Appreciate you.
Lori Dengler: Thank you very much.
Scott Hammond: And, uh, we will take that to, to heed. Let's, let's repeat one more time, where, where do we find you? Where do we find this?
Lori Dengler: Here.
Scott Hammond: Where do we-
Lori Dengler: Yeah
Scott Hammond: … find your, uh, your websites that you, your favorites-
Lori Dengler: So-
Scott Hammond: Shout out
Lori Dengler: … fortunately, we actually have the wonderful team, the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group. All you have to do is Redwood Coast Tsunami Work
Lori Dengler: Group-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … and you'll go straight to our website.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: Um, we're on Facebook, RCTWG.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: That's actually one of the better places to get, uh, rapidly updated information.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: So when there's a significant earthquake, tsunami, and we're, I'm getting information-
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm
Lori Dengler: … that's where I post-
Scott Hammond: Okay
Lori Dengler: … is on the RCTWG Facebook page.
Scott Hammond: Okay.
Lori Dengler: Just because it's the easiest, fastest way for me to get it out.
Scott Hammond: Sure. Sure.
Lori Dengler: And, uh, anyone is welcome to get copies of our brand-new 2024 edition-
Scott Hammond: It's beautiful
Lori Dengler: … of Living on Shaky Ground.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Amy Uecki did the artwork, much of the artwork in this, uh, Reese's partner.
Lori Dengler: And-
Scott Hammond: Shout out to Reese and Amy. Hi, Reese.
Lori Dengler: Oh, yes.
Scott Hammond: Hi, Amy.
Lori Dengler: Oh, they make work fun. Um-
Scott Hammond: Oh, super nice
Lori Dengler: … and,
Lori Dengler: uh, don't let it, don't let the fear
Lori Dengler: take this part of your life away from you.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: And, um, I actually wrote a column about three weeks ago on earthquakes and fear.
Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Lori Dengler: Uh, I do… You can also find all of my columns archived on our website.
Scott Hammond: Thanks again for coming.
Lori Dengler: Thank you.
Scott Hammond: Appreciate you.