Skyquake

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A skyquake is a phenomenon where a loud banging sound is reported to originate from the sky. The sound may cause noticeable vibration in the ceiling or across a particular room. Those who experience skyquakes typically do not have a clear explanation for what caused them and they are perceived as mysterious. They have been heard in several locations around the world, several locations in the North Sea, the Ganges, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Finland, Australia, Italy, Ireland, India, The Netherlands, Norway, Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, Malaysia (particularly Ipoh) and Indonesia (particularly Jakarta and Java).

Contents

Local names

Names (according to area) are:

In 1804, they were reportedly heard during the Lewis and Clark Expedition near Great Falls. Meriwether Lewis wrote “since our arrival at the falls we have repeatedly witnessed a noise which proceeds from a direction a little to the N. of West as loud and resembling precisely the discharge of a piece of ordinance of 6 pounds at the distance of three miles.” William Clark added in his notes, “…a rumbling like Cannon at a great distance is heard to the west of us; the Cause we Can’t account.” [5]

They have been reported from an Adriatic island in 1824; Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria in Australia; Belgium; frequently on calm summer days in the Bay of Fundy and Passamaquoddy Bay, New Brunswick, Canada; Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland; Scotland; Cedar Keys, Florida; Franklinville, New York in 1896; and northern Georgia in the United States. [6]

Their sound has been described as being like distant but inordinately loud thunder while no clouds are in the sky large enough to generate lightning. Those familiar with the sound of cannon fire say the sound is nearly identical. The booms occasionally cause shock waves that rattle plates. Early white settlers in North America were told by the native Haudenosaunee Iroquois that the booms were the sound of the Great Spirit continuing his work of shaping the earth.[ citation needed ]

The terms "mistpouffers" and "Seneca guns" both originate in Seneca Lake, New York, and refer to the rumble of artillery fire. James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans , wrote "The Lake Gun" in 1850, a short story describing the phenomenon heard at Seneca Lake, which seems to have popularized the terms.

Hypotheses

Their origin has not been positively identified. Given the long time that they have been known and reported, but with no proposal experimentally confirmed, it seems likely that they occur for more than one reason. Proposed explainations have been:

See also

Related Research Articles

Seneca Lake is the largest of the glacial Finger Lakes of the U.S. state of New York, and the deepest glacial lake entirely within the state. It is promoted as the lake trout capital of the world, and is host of the National Lake Trout Derby. Because of its depth and relative ease of access, the US Navy uses Seneca Lake to perform test and evaluation of equipment ranging from single element transducers to complex sonar arrays and systems. The lake takes its name from the Seneca nation of Native Americans. At the north end of Seneca Lake is the city of Geneva, New York, home of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, a division of Cornell University. At the south end of the lake is the village of Watkins Glen, New York, famed for auto racing and waterfalls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar wind</span> Stream of charged particles from the Sun

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thermosphere</span> Layer of the Earths atmosphere above the mesosphere and below the exosphere

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inversion (meteorology)</span> Deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lightning</span> Weather phenomenon involving electrostatic discharge

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Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning produces rapid expansion of the air in the path of a lightning bolt. In turn, this expansion of air creates a sonic shock wave, often referred to as a "thunderclap" or "peal of thunder". The scientific study of thunder is known as brontology and the irrational fear (phobia) of thunder is called brontophobia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shock wave</span> Propagating disturbance

In physics, a shock wave, or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a medium, but is characterized by an abrupt, nearly discontinuous, change in pressure, temperature, and density of the medium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Speed of sound</span> Speed of sound wave through elastic medium

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonic boom</span> Shock wave from flying at the speed of sound

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<i>Nozomi</i> (spacecraft) Failed Japanese orbiter mission to Mars (1998–2003)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atmospheric diffraction</span>

Atmospheric diffraction is manifested in the following principal ways:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gunshot</span> Single discharge of a gun

A gunshot is a single discharge of a gun, typically a man-portable firearm, producing a visible flash, a powerful and loud shockwave and often chemical gunshot residue. The term can also refer to a ballistic wound caused by such a discharge.

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Barisal guns or fog guns are a series of loud booms heard near the Barisal region of Bangladesh in the 19th century. There are various theories about the origin of the sound. One common explanation is that it was caused by the sound of waves, broken up by local topography, but geological origins have also been proposed. The sound is an example of a skyquake – an unexplained sudden loud sound without corresponding earthquake activity. Similar sounds have been reported in many waterfront communities around the world such as the Ganges Delta and Brahmaputra River delta in Bangladesh, the East Coast and inland Finger Lakes of the United States, as well as areas of the North Sea, the lakes of southern Germany, Japan and Italy; and sometimes away from water, for example, in the American midwest where they have been attributed to cold temperature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sound</span> Vibration that travels via pressure waves in matter

In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain. Only acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. In air at atmospheric pressure, these represent sound waves with wavelengths of 17 meters (56 ft) to 1.7 centimeters (0.67 in). Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar phenomena</span> Natural phenomena within the Suns atmosphere

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Lake Gun</span> Short story by James Fenimore Cooper

"The Lake Gun" is a satirical short story by James Fenimore Cooper first published in 1850. The short story was commissioned by George E. Wood for $100, and published in a miscellany titled The Parthenon. It was reprinted in Specimens of American Literature in New York in 1866. The short story satirizes political demagoguery, focused on William Henry Seward.

References

  1. T.D. LaTouche, "On the Sounds Known as Barisal Guns", Report (1890-8) of the annual meeting By British Association for the Advancement of Science, Issue 60, pp. 800.
  2. Eraldo Baldini, "Tenebrosa Romagna", Il Ponte Vecchio, 2014, p. 21.
  3. William R. Corliss, Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds, and related phenomena (The Sourcebook Project, 1983).
  4. M.G.J.Minnaert, De Natuurkunde van 't Vrije Veld, Deel 2: Geluid, Warmte, Elektriciteit, § 48: Mistpoeffers, bladzijden 63-64.
  5. "Artillery Sounds Heard By Lewis and Clark (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov.
  6. Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events. 1899. p. 440.
  7. 1 2 "Earthquake booms, Seneca guns, and other sounds". usgs.gov. United States Geological Survey. 29 October 2013.
  8. "Milkshakes: Unusual earthquakes [that] strike Wisconsin". Ars Technica (online magazine). 25 February 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
  9. Wilson, D. Keith; Noble, John M.; Coleman, Mark A. (October 2003). "Sound propagation in the nocturnal boundary layer". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences . 60 (20): 2473–2486. doi: 10.1175/1520-0469(2003)060<2473:SPITNB>2.0.CO;2 . ISSN   0022-4928.
  10. Ouzounov, Dimitar; Pulinets, Sergey; Romanov, Alexey; Romanov, Alexander; Tsybulya, Konstantin; Davidenko, Dimitri; et al. (2011). "Atmosphere-ionosphere response to the M9 Tohoku earthquake, revealed by joined satellite and ground observations: Preliminary results". arXiv: 1105.2841 [physics.geo-ph].