You can see seismograms of earthquakes that were recently recorded by BC-ESP and other Weston Observatory seismographs by clicking here.
Let us know if you have any comments about any of those earthquakes. Just scroll to the bottom of this page, and type your comments where it says “Leave a comment”.
Did you record any of them on your school’s seismograph?
Did you feel any of the local earthquakes?
Do you have any thoughts about the seismograms you recorded that you would like to share with us?
Is there anything else that you would like to share with the BC-ESP community about the earthquakes we are recording?
Earthquakes and Related Matters 
On June 8, 2008 a magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurred in GREECE and was recorded by BC-ESP seismographs.
This strong earthquake struck southwestern Greece (35KM SW of Patras) killing at least two people, injuring more than 100 and leveling dozens of homes. The shaking was felt in most parts of Greece, as well as southern Italy, and is the most destructive earthquake to strike Greece since 1999. A number of aftershocks have also occurred following this earthquake.
For a seismogram of the magnitude 6.1 Greece earthquake and for more information, please visit our BC-ESP weblog –
http://idesweb.bc.edu/wiki/seismo/blog
I have many friends and relatives who live in different parts of Greece and they all felt the earthquake in Greece yesterday. They were very scared because they hadn’t experienced such a destructive earthquake in almost 10 years!
Powerful Earthquake Strikes Japan –
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/14/japan.earthquake/index.html
Weston Observatory/BC-ESP Seismogram –
Yesterday a couple of my students noticed what they thought was an earthquake on the monitor. Sure enough, we checked it out on the USGS website, and they had noticed the magnitude 6.6 earthquake in the mid-Atlantic ridge.
The students were incredibly excited to have been the “discoverers” of this quake. They were quite proud of having noticed it. It led to a brief discussion about why there would be earthquakes in the middle of the ocean; they couldn’t stop asking questions!
Mark,
Thanks (to you AND your students) for sending me this report about the experience your students had with recording this quake.
Hearing reports like this makes me feel like all the effort we are putting into the BC-ESP is worthwhile!
– Alan Kafka
Mark,
What school are you in and where? Grade level?
Mark is a teacher at Heath School in Brookline and teaches Middle School science.
Brand new Seismograph EQ hooked up and running only 8 hours…sure enough, when I came in this AM I looked at the screen and said to myself, “Oh my God, I think we picked up our first Earthquake at around 4PM EST”. When I received the BC notice, I flipped out. Wow, am I excited. Lots to learn, but off to a great start!
John,
Great to hear that you are having such a positive experience with recording earthquakes!
Which quake was it? Was it the magnitude 6.7 quake that occurred offshore of Mexico on October 16?
I had just finished doing some fine tuning of our seismograph at BC when that one came in, and it was fascinating to watch it coming in.
Even though I have been doing seismology and recording earthquakes for decades, I was still amazed to see that earthquake so well-recorded on our seismograph, and I’m still fascinated that it is possible to record earthquakes at great distances across the globe using seismographs.
– Alan Kafka
Alan,
Yes, it was the earthquake off the coast of Mexico mag. 6.7 on Oct. 16. Our data appeared almost exactly as on the units at BC. We are using a brand new EQ-1. I look forward to coming to BC and learning more about the unit for use with 4th and 5th graders.
Hi,
is there any website that provides the details of the Pulse B Type wave characteristics (relating to Near fault ground Motion) ? ( i.e. a-t , v-t and d-t History)
I need the amplitude, period and the location of the graph.
Thanks heaps!
Alan,
Just curious how you have your filters set on your ESQ1 at Weston?
thanks,
John Papadonis
Burlington Science Center
We use period=15 sec for “Filter out high frequencies”, and period=20 sec for “Filter out low frequencies”.
This works well for recording distant earthquakes.
– Alan
Hi Stacy,
Wish I could take credit for the good eye…but one of my kids picked it up! 🙂
She was asking about it and I saw the USGS report (Magnitude 5.7 Earthquake in the ARCTIC OCEAN)and figured that it might be. Nice to think they are paying as much if not more attention to it than me!
Glad to know that we really were seeing things.
Thanks for the verification!
Have a great weekend,
Gale
Hi Stacy and Alan,
I want to share a few comments that a group of students wrote about the big Samoa quake that caused the tsunami a week and a half ago. I was in the Science Lab towards the end of the day dismissing a class of kindergarteners when I noticed that the squiggly lines on the monitor didn’t at all look like regular classroom “noise”. After they left, I watched a little more and then realized with excitement that this was an earthquake actually being recorded as I stood there watching! I went across the hall to a nearby sixth grade classroom and invited the four students who were there to come over and watch the event “in the making”. Below are their comments on the experience. (The readings that we saw were just the tip of the iceberg – the really violent recordings were made after school was out, but we sure saw them the next day!)
Tom Kinsky
About a week ago a group of students and I were packing our bags when our science teacher, Mr. Kinsky, called us across the hall to check out the seismograph. We saw ,(what we later found out was an earthquake in Samoa), an earthquake happening before our eyes! This was very exciting for me because I had never seen an earthquake happen let a lone a seismograph. I found it quite amazing that what I was watching was happening at that moment and I was one of the few people that knew that it was going on. This experience was definitely one that I will remember!
– Ally S.
Watching an earthquake was an amazing experience. It was amazing to think that you could be playing a video game or brushing your teeth while a huge earthquake was happening on the other side of the world. My friends Sara, Ally, Moira, and I were packing up when our science teacher came into our class and asked if we wanted to see an earthquake in progress. It was small at the moment and when we saw a slight increase in the line graph we thought that it was an after shock. Mr Kinsky said that if he saw the earthquake mentioned on the news he would tell us where it was. It ended up to be a number 8 earthquake in Samoa and we were experiencing it on the other side of the world.
— Samantha B.
1. Watching the earthquake happen was really cool because not everyone can say that they have seen an earthquake happen while being about 100000 miles away from it. Our science teacher printed out the squiggly line so we could take it home to show our parents. Looking at the line forming I thought I saw the after shock but it wasn’t even the main part! I have the paper posted on my board so I can look at it and feel special inside because only me and 3 other girls in my class got to see it.
– Sara L.
A little while ago 4 other girls and I were packing up to go home when our science teacher Mr. Kinsky called us across the hall.He showed us something on the seismograph… A real earth quake happening then and there. The experience of watching the earth quake in Samoa was very exciting because I’ve never actually watched an earth quake while it was happening. It was also fantastic being able to see it happening on seismograph. A couple days later I saw the out come on the t.v. It was crazy that I got to watch it happen.
– Moira
p.s. thanks Mr. Kinsky
Tom,
Thanks (to you AND your students) for sending us this report about the experience your students had watching the quake in Samoa as it was being recorded on your seismograph.
Hearing reports like this makes me feel like all the effort we are putting into the BC-ESP is worthwhile!
– Alan Kafka
Hey this is ally one of the students that Mr. Kinsky mentioned. Thanks for all the effort you put into BC-ESP because when I saw the hurricane happening it was an amazing experience and I thank you very much for letting me be a part of that! Keep it up and maybe some other lucky six graders will see the same things I saw! Thanks so much.
-Ally
I agree with Ally! Im Sara, another one of the Samoa-earthquake 6th graders. I think its really awsometastic (it even earned my speicial word)how that springiy thingamabob can pick up those sound waves from half way across the world!
This is a follow up on my 1st comment. When my teacher was reading the comments to the rest of the class she corrected me when i said that the earth was 100000 miles long. I later found out that the earth is only 24,901.55 miles long at the equater. My bad!
– Sara
in 2005 there was a 6.7 earthquake where all of maui and hawaii felt for 48 seconds not weakening and none stop. my cats wer caught on video during the aproaching earth quake and ran for there livees. look at it mauiquake 2