Way back in 2001, Seattle was rocked by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake – cracking sidewalks, uprooting trees, and even fracturing the capitol dome in Olympia. The earthquake happened about 30 miles below the earth’s surface and sent tremors up and down the west coast. Just a little ways north of Seattle, in the sleepy settlement of Port Townsend, the quake offered striking visual evidence that tremors are more than just destructive.
Jason Ward, owner of a local shop called Mind Over Matter, discovered that the earthquake had left behind its own artistic touch. The vibrations from the quake caused a sand tracing pendulum in his office to “draw” a remarkable rose shaped pattern during the 45 second tremor.
Jason Ward
A sand pendulum consists of a steel point suspended over a tray of sand from a wire. As the earthquake sent vibrations through the earth, the suspended point carved the resulting frequencies in the sand below. The “flower” in the center is a visual representation of the higher, stronger frequencies of the quake that arrived first and the outer rings were caused by the lower frequency waves that arrived later.
Though not as accurate as a modern seismograph, Ward’s sand pendulum gave us a really cool glimpse into the mystery of nature.
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