Ryan J Hollister

I’m Ryan, an earth science educator & curriculum developer at two colleges in Central California. I’ve had a hand in some cool virtual field experience innovations, but lately I’m the “Volcano Tissue Box Guy”. I’m pinning my Etsy store link here for when I release batches. phaneritic.etsy.com

The high tide on Tuesday morning reached 2.54 feet above the mean high tide (MHHW). Here's a map that shows the extent of inundation with a water level that high. The Miami area has never experienced tidal flooding this extensive before without a nearby hurricane.

New #Geology research investigates the TOL-1 section in the Mut Basin (southern Türkiye), documenting the world’s highest known late Middle Pleistocene marine deposits, preserved at 1,177 m above mean sea level: geosociety.co/Sari-et-al Photo: TOL-1 Section, Mut Basin, Turkey. Courtesy Selma Sarı.

Big rocks. Visitor center guy said Alex Honnold was climbing in the park today. Not sure which rock. But maybe he’s one of these rocks.

Progress is finally humming along at the Ferguson Slide Rock Shed (the slide happened in 2006 and wiped out 200m of highway). Hope they get a lot done in the next few weeks so they can move their equipment out of the channel prior to possible flooding later this winter.

This sign got removed during road repairs to flood damage in 2023, but it similarly showed our previous high water marks in the Feather River Canyon. East Branch of the North Fork of the Feather River, to be precise.

With odds being tilted so far in favor of above average precipitation this winter, I thought Id capture the 1997 Flood Monument and marker on the Superintendent’s Bridge for future reference. Just down stream peak flows were 24k+ cfs in January 1997.

Meh. Was told there’d be water. 1 ⭐️

Disastrous flooding along the San Juan River in the Four Corners region. Here’s some of what I saw today in Shiprock, on the Navajo Nation in northwest New Mexico.

If you’ve never seen Kiff’s Chunky Text video, it seems appropriate now. youtu.be/2ySTzvfqKGE?...

On Tuesday at 10am PT (around the time of peak daily high tide in parts of southern CA), I'll have a livestream to discuss the possibly record high ocean levels this week along SoCal coast, plus potential for an unusually warm storm on/around Halloween.

⚒️ 🧪 Earthquakes have been swarming offshore Vanuatu. What’s going on in this corner of the world? More fascinating than this latest swarm is the history of islands perched above the subduction zone, carried up and down by movement of the slab below. earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/earthquake...

My dad’s salmon, LOL. Made it to Catch America’s socials. youtube.com/shorts/ROqX7...

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When I was in middle school in Nebraska, I thought The Cheesecake Factory was a fictional restaurant that The Big Bang Theory made up. Then when I was in grad school at Caltech, I found out that some people thought Caltech was a fictional university that The Big Bang Theory made up.

Yesterday, a mooring in Monterey Bay measured an oceanic temperature anomaly of 4.57°C (8.2°F) at 60 meters (nearly 200 feet!) This is the warmest subsurface temperature anomaly measured at the station since the very strong El Niño of 1997.

@xenolith.bsky.social and I worked hard on our new patio and pergola today. Finally got the pergola base set in concrete tonight. Final compaction and screed work will happen after my Yosemite field trip on Monday. But before big rains.

I joined Beth Ruyak on the California Politics Podcast to talk about the science behind, potential effects of, and (but of course!) the politics and public policy surrounding El Niño and other hazard/disaster risks in the Golden State.

This week I attended a SCEC sponsored workshop and field trip to look at faults in the Truckee area co-led by @faultcreeper.bsky.social Here are a couple of images of the Polaris fault including an impressive offset terrace riser along the Truckee River and a linear swale/closed depression.

USGS river gages dropping like flies as this insane #flood wave moves downstream on the #sanjuanriver. The gages "at Four Corners" and "near Bluff" are yet to receive the wave.

The record flood wave continues moving down the San Juan River in NW NM, as the gauge at Shiprock is cresting about 7' above the prior highest level. The damage along the river in CO and NM appears to have been devastating. balancedweather.substack.com/p/record-flo...

After next week’s voting I hope that’s also the last of the right for this century.

Just me casually telling my sister to change her Xmas flights to CA from SFO to Sacramento to reduce risk of canceled trips due to much higher than average potential for SFO / Bay Area flooding this winter.

Cactuses make a surprisingly large amount of carbonate when they die. Makes the desert strangely coral reef like.

Oh look 👀 It’s me! www.c21media.net/marketplace/...

New paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that the US could add over 800 GW of wind, solar, and battery capacity just by... plugging them in to existing power plants' interconnection points that have excess capacity. Total US capacity today is ~1,300 GW. @volts.wtf

So now Trump is going to sell Alaska back to Russia?!! Turning the clock all the way back to 1867….

In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web.

The Many Colors of Goat Rock, at the mouth of the Russian River on the Sonoma Coast. #photography #geology #naturephotography #rocks

Man this season of the Diplomat was very good. I don’t like having to wait another season to get the resolution I’d prefer.

As seen in Turlock.

📣 PRESS RELEASE 📣 In a new #SRL paper, scientists present ocean bottom seismic data that reveal “fossilized” traces of mantle flow beneath the Pacific Ocean’s oldest preserved piece of crust. ⚒️ PRESS RELEASE: buff.ly/ThmrlhH PAPER: buff.ly/fA6p3Bj

⚒️ 🧪 A shallow M5.7 earthquake struck north of Sicily today, triggering a tsunami alert. The earthquake was preceded by foreshocks starting several days ago. What’s going on, and why is the seismicity here so complicated? earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/m57-earthq...

Historic flooding in Farmington, NM, today. Our KRQE photographer captured this video as the San Juan River reached its highest recorded level, breaking the record from 1909. Dangerous flooding continues downstream toward Shiprock, where river levels will rise tonight. #NMwx

From Maria Kelly on Facebook. Pagosa Springs, Colorado San Juan River, October 23, 2026 9:25 am Video taken after the river had crested.

NWS San Diego has issued new Coastal Flood Warning for near-record/record-breaking tides and possible widespread coastal inundation in SoCal Sun-Thu. And there's no king tides or major storms in the mix yet...just elevated sea levels from extreme El Nino plus long-term warming.

we are now up to 10,800 cfs in-town Durango, it seems like it really wants to break the 1970 record!

With heavy rains in the El Nino forecast, CGS is using geoscience to take proactive steps to protect people and communities from landslides and debris flow hazards.These new landslide hazard fact sheets offer tips and valuable info to keep Californians safe! www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/landslides