ERIK OLSEN - Journalist/Filmmaker

Journalist based in Los Angeles. Drone pilot. Kayaker. I also shoot photographs and occasionally write.

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Hidden Near Los Angeles Is One of the World's Most Important Centers for Endangered Apes

The Gibbon Conservation Center in Santa Clarita is home to about 40 endangered apes and has become a globally important center for conservat

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The Davidson Seamount off the coast of California stands out as one of the most intensively studied deep-sea sites on Earth, home to ancient coral forests, newly discovered species, and rare “octopus gardens” that are reshaping how scientists understand life in the deep ocean. Right off our coast!

Davidson Seamount and the Unseen Mountains and Hidden Treasures Off California's Coast

California’s coast is home to dozens of seamounts, each harboring diverse ecosystems and geological mysteries waiting to be explored.

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That Time We Tried to Live Under the Sea Off California

In the 1960s, as America raced to the Moon, the Navy sent aquanauts to the ocean floor off La Jolla in an ambitious experiment called SEALAB II. The U.S. Navy’s SEALAB II habitat is prepared for deployment in 1965, as support ships stand by off the Southern California coast. Lowered to about 205 feet near La Jolla, the experimental underwater station would house teams of aquanauts for weeks at a…

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Why Southern California is the Stingray Capital of the World

Round stingray off the California coast. (Photo: Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab) Remember that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones peers into the Well of Souls and sees the floor writhing with snakes? Well, there’s a stretch of coastline in Southern California that’s kind of like that, but the creatures moving there aren’t snakes. They’re stingrays. Why’d it have to be…

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How the Jones Act Strangles California Innovation and Keeps I-5 Packed with Trucks

A century-old law, the Jones Act, is keeping coastal shipping off the map—while traffic, costs, and emissions keep rising on land. A Maersk container ship (and many others) sits off the California coast during Covid in 2020. (Photo: Erik Olsen) This article is adapted from my Substack, which offers weekly articles on California. You can get 50% off a subscription with this link. It helps fund…

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MBARI and the Machines That Let Us See the Deep 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California (Photo: Erik Olsen) You’ve probably seen the videos. A fish with a transparent head, its organs floating inside like tennis balls. Squid drifting through the darkness with enormous, googly eyes and arms trailing behind them like ribbons. These strange animals are just a glimpse of what scientists are beginning to learn…

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Curiosity Is the Point

Diving and filming beneath one of California’s oil rigs. (Photo: Kyle McBurnie) If you’ve recently encountered this Website, welcome. I hope you find something here that feeds your interests and gives you a reason to look a little more closely at the world around you. And if you’ve been here for a while, I’m genuinely grateful you’ve stuck around. What a few years ago as a passion project has…

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The Valley That Feeds a Nation

How tectonics, sediment, and water created one of the most productive landscapes on Earth.

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California’s Daily Tidal Wave of Life

A lobate ctenophore in the ocean twilight zone. (Photo: NOAA) If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you already know I’m obsessed with submarines and undersea life. I believe we’re at the beginning of a new era of ocean discovery, driven by small personal submersibles, remotely operated vehicles (ROVS), and autonomous explorers (AUVs) that can roam the deep on their own. Add AI…

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Measuring the Earth’s Tremors and the Discovery of the Richter Scale

Support California Curated with a small donation. Seismometer measuring earthquake impact. We all know California is known for earthquakes. AND most people probably know there’s a reason for that: California lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and it also sits at the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, creating the San Andreas Fault and making it especially prone…

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When Muybridge Made Motion Visible in Palo Alto

Eadweard Muybridge’s ‘Animal Locomotion’ was the first scientific study to use photography. Now, more than 130 years later, Muybridge’s work is seen as both an innovation in photography and the science of movement. Eadweard Muybridge, detail of ‘Bouquet’, Galloping, 1887. (Source: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands) Would you support us? Just a few bucks. We’d appreciate it! I love digging…

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My Favorite California Science & Nature Videos

From JPL’s Voyager Program to the return of wolves, here are my top video picks for you. Today’s newsletter is a little different. Instead of one big story focused on a single topic, I put together a short list of some of my favorite California science and nature videos. I keep a long, slightly chaotic bookmark folder of things I come across online and save for later, often pulling ideas from it…

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In 1962, Swiss physicist Hannes Keller attempted a historic 1,000-foot dive off Catalina Island using experimental gas mixtures to push the limits of human diving. The dive proved both groundbreaking and tragic, advancing deep-sea science while costing two lives and underscoring the extreme risks of exploring the ocean’s depths. https://open.substack.com/pub/californiacurated/p/hannes-kellers-1000-foot-descent?r=22pbq&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

Hannes Keller's 1,000-Foot Descent off Catalina Island Was the Dive of the Century

An ambitious quest for underwater exploration that ended in tragedy beneath the Pacific waves.

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Ancient and Poisonous Cycads Are the Prehistoric Plants of Southern California

Cycad at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. (Photo: Erik Olsen) If there’s one thing our increasingly digital world has pushed me toward, it’s a desire to reconnect with the natural one. At a moment when AI, deepfakes, and synthetic media blur the line between real and artificial, I find myself drawn more strongly to things that…

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California’s Two-Spot Octopus is The Alien Mind Off Shore

I have a deep passion for octopuses. I have made several short documentaries about them and even traveled twice to Indonesia with one of the world’s leading octopus scientists to film them in their natural habitat. My home office is packed with octopus imagery and iconography, and years ago I made a personal vow never to eat octopus. Squid and other mollusks still get a pass in my book. If you…

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Upwelling, the Ocean’s Engine Beneath California’s Waters

Would you support us? Just a few bucks. We’d appreciate it! I recently revisited a book I enjoyed: The Blue Machine by physicist, oceanographer, and writer Helen Czerski. It is a beautifully clear exploration of the deep mechanics of the ocean and why those processes are so essential to keeping our planet cool, biodiverse, and stable. One of the core ideas she returns to is ocean upwelling, a…

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