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Scientists detect unusual seismic signals from tornado

scientists-detect-unusual-seismic-signals-from-tornado

An Indiana University geophysical experiment detected unusual seismic signals associated with tornadoes that struck regions across the US Midwest last week – information that may have value for meteorologists studying the atmospheric activity that precedes tornado disasters. The experiment by IU researchers involves deployment of more than 100 state-of-the-art digital seismographs in a broad swath of the U.S. midcontinent. One of the twisters that struck southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois on Feb. 29 passed through the seismic detection array.

“In examining the seismograms, we recorded unusual seismic signals on three of our stations in southern Illinois,” said Michael Hamburger, professor in the department of geological sciences at IU Bloomington and one of the researchers conducting the experiment. “The seismograms show a strong, low-frequency pulse beginning around 4:45 a.m. on Feb. 29. Our preliminary interpretation, based on other seismic records of tornadoes, suggests that we were recording not the tornado itself, but a large atmospheric pressure transient related to the large thunderstorms that spawned the tornadoes.”

The seismographs that detected the pulse are near Harrisburg, Ill., a town of 9,000 where a pre-dawn twister caused extensive damage, killed six people and injured about 100 more.

IU researchers initially feared that some of the instruments might be damaged by the storm, setting back a National Science Foundation-funded project that included the investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of effort.

But when principal investigator Gary Pavlis, an IU professor of geological sciences, checked the digital recordings of the Illinois stations on Feb. 29, he found they were still alive and streaming data. As he checked further, he discovered the strange “tornado seismograms” that were recorded on seismographs near Harrisburg.

Hamburger said a seismic pressure gradient associated with the tornado produced a slow, minute tilting of the seismograph that lasted for several minutes. He said this sort of pressure-related signal may help scientists better understand atmospheric activity that takes place right before tornadoes touch down.

The IU researchers are working with colleagues at the University of California San Diego to try to compare recordings with other tornado-related signals and to dig deeper into the analysis.

While seismographs have been known to detect seismic activity related to tornadoes, it is highly unusual to have state-of-the-art digital instruments recording information in such close proximity to a tornado, the researchers say.

The IU seismic experiment, dubbed “OIINK” for its geographic coverage in parts of the Ozarks, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, includes the positioning of 120 seismometers to study earthquakes and geological structure in a key area of North America. Installation of the instruments began last summer. They are recording thousands of earthquakes from the study area and around the world, as well as nearby mining and quarry explosions.

The $1.3 million, four-year undertaking is part of the NSF’s EarthScope program, which seeks to cover the entire U.S. with a grid of detection devices for the purpose of better understanding seismic activity and predicting earthquakes. Researchers liken EarthScope to “an upside-down telescope” that allows them to look into the Earth and gain a better understanding of seismic forces.

Source: TerraDaily

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5 Comments

  1. WHAT???

    HAARP, schmarp! Um, while I wouldn’t put much past the U.S. military, it just ain’t feasable, unfortunately–and I say so s one that has been futzing with edge-city. electronics for decades. Check out some basics–start with Vequals IR, and go from there; pay close attention to the Inverse-square Power Law, and look into Maxwell’s equations in re propagation/frequency relations (lower the freq, more power ya need).

    Gotta give credit, tho–that’s some ACE photoshopping, putting the goblin-face in the main-pag header-pic for this article…

    G.

    1. Grant withstanding the issue that both HAARP itself acknowledges it like to “stimulate” the ionosphere and that European Union designate HAARP as quote un quote “Climate Weapon”.

      The issue of propagation you refer to can be over come by a number of means. Including I believe by “piggy backing” off the back of plasma storms which occur in the upper atmosphere.

      Ideally such stimulation taking place during prime signal condition which by the amount of money been spent on things like the recent ASTREX launches or THEMIS program I would suspect has something to do with the solar flare and their effect on the EM field to boot.

      Indeed when interviewing Dr Craig Roger Otago University, a specialist in plasma based storms (known as sprites, elves, and blue jets) and a world expert on what happen when you fly a Shuttle thru a Sprite Storm (its not good), he confirmed that using mulit-spectrum lens in Western Australia he indeed noticed a direct correlation between US signal facilities (Australia ‘haarp’) and plasma storm activity directly above i.e. uncle same ws having a good poke around. The equipment Roger used was similar to the lens used on the last doomed space shuttle used to measure these very same storms in experiments overseen by Colonel Ilan Ramon the former head of Israeli weapons procurement for the Israeli Airforce and their leading EW specialist when he died aboard the Challenger after technical failure caused by Electromagnetic turbulence. Notably the shuttle commander William McCool was also leading EW expert for the US warfare tactical fighter command.
      Howeever increased tornado activity does in fact have direct correlation with solar activity without HAARP ad HAARP role in this may in fact simply be they are curious as we are whats interesting here it the presence of clear EM activity similar EM anomalously surround the Indonesian Boxig Day and Japanese Tsunami, NZ quakes activity and nor these tornadoes.

  2. Um… back when I was doing a lot of electronics-work with low freqs, (inthe mid-90s)I seem to recall that it was accepted that t-storms (esp. supercells) put out lots of ELF-stuff, both audio and RF. In fact, a mag (Popular Electronics? Radio-electronics?) featured a ELF- receiver they said could ‘possibly predict storms’ by their ‘ELF signature’.
    It used a drum-antenna with about a mile or so of magnet-wire on it.

    So, I was wondering, what freqs are these guys seeing in tornados? If it’s 6-8Hz, and/or 30-50,then they’re reinventing the wheel, same as they did in the ’90s, recapitulating Tesla, et al., in the ’30s…
    The older I gets, the more amusing Humans are…

    G.

  3. Sounds to me like HAARP we all know that it will cause if so desired Earthquakes and we all know they can alter the Weather plus other nasty crap.
    So do not be surprised to find Bad weather associated with Earthquakes

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