Caltech has come up with a program that will put video depictions of the up-and-down ground movement produced by Southern California earthquakes on the web 45 minutes after they occur. Video of the shock waves from several past quakes are up for viewing at ShakeMovie, "Caltech's Near Real Time Simulation of Southern California Seismic Events Portal." This scene is from Friday's 4.2 magnitude quake near the Salton Sea. It's not the most useful information for amateurs, but we're all seismology students in L.A. And it sure is a cool toy.

Photo: Caltech