Seattle Fireball, Quake, Power Outage

Unknowcountry’s Seattle correspondent reports that afireball moved slowly over the city at 7:47 PM on March 12. According to the US Geologic Survey, the area hadexperienced an earthquake rated at 3.3 on the Richter scalenine minutes earlier at 7:38. At 7:48PM, parts of downtownSeattle experienced a brief power outage.

The Pacific Northwest Seismographic Network centered thequake15 miles from Olympia and 16 miles in depth. Local residentsfelt the quake. Local media are reporting the quake and thefireball as unrelated events, and the power outage has notreached local news.

We note, also, that there was an earthquake swarm in theEndeavour segment of the northern Juan de Fuca Ridge off thecoast of Oregon last week that sent scientists searching thearea for possible volcanic activity along the fracture.Earthquake swarms along the Juan de Fuca Ridge are notunusual. In 2001, a swarm resulted in sea water being drawninto crevasses in the plate for more than a year. The seafloor has numerous inflow and outflow points, but theprocess by which the water moves in and out of ocean floorformations is not well understood. So far, scientists havenot reported the results of studies of the most recent quakeswarm.

Prior to the great quake that shook the Indian Ocean onDecember 26, Unknowncountry reported numerous incidents offireballs and other unusual aerial phenomena throughoutSouth Asia. Some of the most spectacular of these eventstook place inIndonesia,China andAustralia.

Listen to Linda Moulton Howe ofEarthfiles.comwith a special report at thebeginning of this week’sDreamland onthe Juan De FucaPlate. To listen to Dreamland, click on the word Dreamlandon the right side of our masthead. If you have any problemlistening, please consult our Listening Problems FAQimmediately below the Dreamland and Mysterious Powers linkson the masthead.

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