How local scientists studied the ‘mystery boom’ on Orcas Island

Seismologists hope that sharing this process will inspire an interest in education on the available resources and data.

WASHINGTON – In March, the Pacific Northwest Seismological Network (PNSN) posted a blog about their efforts to locate the source of the “mysterious boom” on Orcas Island.

Now, they’re sharing more about their collaboration with the Cascades Volcano Observatory and about how increasing data points make it easier to get a timely understanding of seismic events.

RELATED: ‘Mystery spikes’ on the source of Orcas Island for Pacific Northwest Seismic Network investigations

The PNSN investigation into the “mysterious boom” reported on the island of Orcas began after an email from a now retired seismologist living in the area, who woke up to a shaking and wanted to know if there was an earthquake.

“There was a signal on our seismometers, but it wasn’t the kind of signal from an earthquake,” said Paul Bowden of PNSN. “So it wasn’t something in the rock that moved — the usual tectonic earthquake. Instead, it had the signature of something sonic in the air — like an explosion in the air, or a firework or something, causing a pressure wave in the atmosphere. , and you can tell the difference. What happens is the pressure wave hits a place where there’s a seismic station and it shakes the building or whatever registers on our equipment, but it’s not like an earthquake. It’s a different kind of signature.”

A variety of things can cause this to happen, with varying degrees of effect, Bowden said. Anything from a truck passing animals walking past it to a tree falling can be recorded.

“To understand — what earthquakes are and what ground motions are, we have to look at this whole mess of things, so what we do is we have a lot of automatic processes to determine what we expect to be earthquakes,” Bowden said. “In a case like…what happened in the case of Orcas Island was, there were no earthquakes and we knew that very quickly actually.”

Bowden said the network is working closely with the Cascades Volcano Observatory, the US Geological Survey in Vancouver, Washington. Over the past few years, he says, they’ve added seismic and infrasound stations around Mount Rainier — and have been able to share some ultrasound data.

“He wrote back, and said, Well, yeah, and he showed us data that shows, there’s this weird signal and using my seismic stations as a matrix I can tell the signal is coming from the north, so it kind of fits — but it’s not,” Bowden said.

Through ongoing investigation, PNSN concluded that the source of the explosion was most likely a man-made device such as an amateur explosive – possibly, a fireworks. Investigate the competence of other organizations and bodies.

But Bowden said the assessment they were able to make is a testament to the tools now available to analyze seismic activity more closely. PNSN, operated by the University of Washington and the University of Oregon, has continued to add new seismic stations across the region, which now number in the hundreds.

The hope is that more Washington residents will educate themselves about the available processes and data involved—in line with the network’s mission to provide accurate and rapid information about earthquakes and ground motions to scientists, engineers, planners, and community members.

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