Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
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The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, or PNSN collects and studies ground motions from about 400 seismometers in Oregon and Washington to monitor volcanic and tectonic activity, and gives advice and information, and works to mitigate earthquake hazard.
Damaging earthquakes are well known in the Pacific Northwest, including several larger than magnitude 7, most notably the M9 Cascadia earthquake in 1700AD and the M7.2 earthquake in about 900AD on the Seattle Fault. In 1965, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake shook the Seattle, Washington, area causing substantial damage and seven deaths. This event spurred the installation of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) in 1969 to monitor regional earthquake activity.
Earthquakes are recorded frequently on Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, and Mount Hood. After successfully using seismic activity to predict the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption, monitoring was expanded to other Cascade volcanos. The PNSN, in conjunction with the Cascade Volcano Observatory of the USGS, now monitors seismicity at all of the Cascade volcanos in Washington and Oregon.
The Network operates from the Earth and Space Sciences Department at the University of Washington in Seattle, and its data archiving is abetted by the Data Management Center of IRIS Consortium in Seattle. It is the second largest of the regional seismic networks in the ANSS (Advanced National Seismic System), simpler[citation needed] than the CISN (California Integrated Seismic Network), and with more data than the networks in Alaska, Utah, Nevada, Hawaii and the New Madrid area.
The network is funded primarily by the US Geological Survey (USGS) which stations its own staff on the campus to work with UW faculty and staff. Additionally the Department of Energy and the State of Washington provide funding. The network was significantly expanded in 2001 after the damaging Nisqually Quake, but the network's emergency notification failed to function immediately after a medium sized earthquake on January 30th, 2009.
[edit] External links
- Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (official website)
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