Today’s story is about a series of earthquake aftershocks, several thousand little shocks in the Hebgen Lake area of Yellowstone National Park measured from June 2017 to March 2018.
That’s not in and of itself unusual, except for one thing: the original earthquake happened in August 1959.
These are aftershocks decdes after the original quake.
Geoscientists from the University of Utah have published a study of what happened.
Now, the obvious question is, how do we know these are aftershocks and not just new earthquakes?
Here’s where it gets complicated, and interesting. There have been earthquakes in the area since 1959, so the scientists had to figure out which seismic readings were which.
The ones that were accompanied by the movement of magma under the surface were their own seismic events. The others were aftershocks.
They were able to sort out which shocks were which, in part by measuring what movements each made and in which direction.
The other reason they could tell which was which was because they had been waiting all this time for more aftershocks.
Geologists use formulas to predict how many aftershocks you should see after certain kinds of earthquakes, and for years Hebgen Lake had been short.
The scientists were asking why this enormous quake didn’t have as many aftershocks as it normally would. Now we know the real question about aftershocks is, what took ‘em so long?
We have one more story of a very delayed reaction – an aftershock of a different kind, you might say.
Last week CBS San Francisco reported on the story of Eliot Curtis, who was repairing and cleaning a vintage synthesizer used by some prominent experimental musicians some fifty years ago.
Curtis says the longer he worked on the synth, the weirder he felt – like he was tripping on LSD.
As tests later proved, he really was tripping – the rumors that someone had dipped their instruments in the psychedelic drug were true, and he’d been dosed by the lingering residue even after all those years!
Fortunately Curtis is ok – and you know how there are those dudes who lived like the 60s had never ended? Maybe they were right…
Aftershocks of 1959 Earthquake Rocked Yellowstone in 2017-18 (University of Utah)
Repair Of Iconic ’60s Era Synthesizer Turns Into Long, Strange Trip For Engineer (CBS San Francisco)
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