Backcountry seismic activity sends scientists out in the wild near Stanley – Idaho State Journal

FRANK CHURCH-RIVER OF NO RETURN WILDERNESS It feels as if the carpet should be a thick pile of shag.

It isnt, but the interior of this Cessna 206 is certainly attempting to catch the vibe of a 1973 Volkswagen Bus interior, down to the cream and brown coloring and hints of orange.

The reason this Cessna is even part of a story about earthquakes is because planes like the one owned by the Idaho Transportation Departments Division of Aeronautics are the most reliable way to get into the remote areas where seismologists and geophysicists like to place their high-sensitivity and expensive monitoring equipment.

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Their latest project is learning more about the 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit near Stanley in March, leaving a long-lasting trail of effects.

Claudio Berti, an Italian geodynamicist and director of the Idaho Geological Survey, and Tim Steffen, the Division of Aeronautics safety and education coordinator and ex-fighter pilot, are well-versed in flying into backcountry airstrips in Idahos mountainous central region to pick up data from seismometer stations that are helping to map the fault which caused Marchs earthquake and more recent aftershocks.

Idaho Geological Survey is a state agency hosted by the University of Idaho as a program in the universitys Office of Research and Economic Development. Berti is in charge of gathering seismic data throughout the state. And since the large March 31 earthquake, he has been flying out to backcountry airstrips so seismologists across Idaho and the United States can study the aftereffects of the big shake.

On Monday, Berti brought an Idaho Press reporter along as he ran through diagnostics on two seismometers at the Upper Loon and Thomas Creek airstrips north of Stanley, just miles from the quakes epicenter. Since Idaho has no permanent seismic monitoring system, the devices Berti visits by plane monthly are jerry-rigged in blue Rubbermaid storage boxes and locked to fences and trees. Boise State University geophysicists installed the devices soon after the quake, along with earthquake monitoring equipment around Boise.

Seismic energy from an earthquake has a very unique fingerprint, Berti said as he pulled data from the seismometers onboard memory device. Some signals are much larger than others like you see in a large earthquake, but small earthquakes show up in shocks often.

Seismometers are a geophysics monitoring tool that determine how much the ground is moving, and in some cases they have been paired with geophones which measure how fast the ground is shaking and infrasound microphones, which measure the sound aftershocks send into the atmosphere.

The earths movement crackles, moves, breaks for months or years after a big earthquake, Berti said. So all the little earthquakes, the cracks, the earth healing, it illuminates the fault, and by locating the fault we can determine the dimensions.

With such a strong earthquake, aftershocks will continue for a significant period of time, potentially longer than a year, which is why many of the seismometers and other seismic-listening equipment will be deployed in the area around Stanley for the coming months.

Part of Bertis job is to check to make sure the seismometer is still working and ensure the data is gathered correctly. To ensure the vibration monitoring device is functioning, Berti jumps up and lands hard on the ground next to the seismometer, to look for his signature on the equipments readout, which shows up as a lopsided W.

The information gathered from these seismometers will be uploaded into a national database that other seismologists and geologists will study in the future, and will hopefully collect enough data to get a true profile of the fault that caused Marchs earthquake. Which means the Cessna 206 is going to continue to get a workout and the interior decor will be open to the stunning sights of central Idaho for some time to come.

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Backcountry seismic activity sends scientists out in the wild near Stanley - Idaho State Journal