After striking out on finding a stand-alone source for California’s fault lines, I decided to try the USGS National Map, which I had forgotten about. It’s somewhat klunky in its speed and user interface, but it keeps getting a little bit better each time I try it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a layer for fault lines under the geology group. But alas, when I checked this layer for display, nothing of the sort was visible. And when I found something else interesting that I’d like to add to my APRS maps–a coarse NOAA depth contoru map of the SF Bay, I could display a beautiful, colored picture of the bay and ocean waters, but when I went to download this data, it was not available.

Since the USGS Menlo Park office is so close, I think I might take a trip down there today to find out why it’s so hard to gather this data in a usable form, and find out if they can help me find dam failure inundation maps, tsunami hazard maps, and mudslide hazard maps, all of which should be easily available to the public, and especially ham radio operators.