It’s not enough that the drought is toasting our lawns to an unlovely shade of umber, turning our forests into tinder and threatening our salmon runs with extinction; now we have to worry about it causing earthquakes. Well, only obliquely, and only to a small degree. It’s not so much that the lack of rain and snowpack is directly ratcheting up seismicity in the Golden State. Rather—according to a study published online in the journal Nature—temblor frequency seems on the upswing in Central California because of groundwater depletion. And our aquifers, of course, are recharged by precipitation (or not recharged, as is the current parched case). Actually, the process has been going on for decades, rain, snow, or their lack, notwithstanding—ever since intensive agriculture began in the Central Valley, in fact. Before Euro-American settlement, the valley was a vast complex of wetlands and lakes. To read more, please visit http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2014-05-16/sinking-feeling-study-suggests-depleting-groundwater-cal.