Better hope there is not a big earthquake or nuclear blast somewhere...

Because one of the world's largest and most important seismic networks, IU, is completely down. Nothing coming out of IRIS, or the other less public sources I have. This is not good, for a lot of reasons. The PTWC is going to have trouble deducing if a big quake is tsunami- generate. And first responders are going to be waiting hopelessly for epicenter determination.

The world right now is at the mercy of smaller, local networks, many of which are still functioning, but also, many of which are not setup for larger earthquakes. Many are for volcano monitoring, and clip out easily with larger quakes.

Fortunately, most of the Yellowstone and Long Valley stations are still up, so there is data there. I sweat bullets when those go down.

I will also take this opportunity to mention that for the last several months, the one seismometer at Toba accessible to the world has been either totally out (most of the time) or intermittent. Very bad. They need to fix that thing.

Does it not say why they are down? I hope too nothing big happens

a reply to: sarahlm

IU going totally down is very rare. That is a hardened network, and scientists know that it needs to stay up at all costs. For one thing, if a nuclear blast went off, those stations are critical. Or even if a meteor (or asteroid) hit.

I have emailed a scientific contact of mine for further information. So far nothing yet.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

This is the kind of thing that makes me go, "hmmm."

Please keep us informed of what you find through your contacts in the scientific community.

It makes me wonder if there are networks above those you have access to that are still up and running but aren't broadcasting their signal unless you have the specific codes for it.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Ok, I have instructed the Earth to not quake and Lil Kim to play with his nukes at home.

Good reporting, please keep us posted.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

No, there is no conspiracy when it comes to seismic networks. There are a few that I don't have access to, but those are small, local, specialty networks installed as either temporary arrays for specific geologic experiments, or mineral probing. And those are hardly setup for monitoring large quakes or nuclear blasts.

I suppose I should mention that the PTWC can draw on networks like the Alaska Tsunami network (AT), which has some stations itself covering the Alaska area. But that is still a small local network, and very focused. The vast majority of the Pacific rim, and the Ring of Fire, is blind right now. Fortunately there are some other networks covering the west coast USA that can be used in a pinch.

Odd that thing almost never goes down. If one does happen the only people to know about it would be the ones in it or near it.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Ok, so you don't think that there's a military seismic network?

I know you know that they navy filters out certain signals before they go out on the public seismic networks which might reveal the activity of particular hardware. I just wouldn't be surprised to learn they've got their own earthwhisperers too.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

hmm, now that is something I had never even considered, in all my years of dealing with seismic networks. A military seismic network. Very interesting thought.

But it would be the first I'd heard of it. First of all, the costs alone would be prohibitive, because seismic networks are extremely expensive. And second of all, not sure why they would even bother with all the networks that are already in place. They have first tier access to the data, no doubt, from nearly all of them. And the systems are only the first part of the equation. You need trained seismologists. The military has access to all of this right now without spending hardly anything, and coverage already on a world scale they could never even hope to achieve on their own.

But I don't doubt they do have nuclear blast specialists trained to identify nuclear signatures from seismic data.

There are possible other sources: Geofon

Tsunamis: Is NOAA down, too? Can't get that info from their site.
Japan has its own system, but it covers mostly Japan, of course. Website

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Are there other seismic sfations perhaps in Canada or another nearby seismograph ?



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a reply to: TrueAmerican

Really? You never had that notion?

My tin hat must be a little too tight in that case, lol.

If there's an Internet kill switch, I have no doubts that there are kill switches for other networks as well.

If they've got first tier access, what's to prevent them from shutting down the network (or the network traffic) if there's something going on they can't filter out or don't want people to know about?

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
There are possible other sources: Geofon

Ha, the only halfway working station Geofon has on the Pacific ring of fire right now is in Panama. I just checked.

Geofon is not a viable alternative, sorry. Not for the ring of fire it isn't.

Well even if the network is down we're not totally blind. It's just going to take us longer to pull the data if anything does happen. At least most of the other local site have web sites of their own, just have to look them up if we hear anything.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

A. We should always hope that there's no major earthquake or nuclear blast, not only when a network appears to be down

B. The world got along just fine without a global network of seismometers for millions of years--we need to quit thinking that a breakdown of monitoring technology is going to somehow matter in the short term for those who will be affected locally by such an event (they don't predict anything)

C. I think you can rest easy instead of sweating bullets when monitoring technology goes down--it's not going to cause anything that wouldn't happen anyway...or are you just scared that you won't know about it and that this will somehow make a dramatic difference?

D. Any research into whether there is a belief that this is an intention hacking?

Phew. Ok, party over. IU stations are slowly coming back online.

YAY!!!!!!

a reply to: TrueAmerican

Well sort of it is. Data is still choppy, and intermittent. This appears to be a symptom of some key component in their system with issues, because it is affecting all stations at the same time. Main router switch, something like that. Might be a while before they finally track it down and fix it. But some data is better than NO data. They are obviously trying.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

No, there is no conspiracy when it comes to seismic networks. There are a few that I don't have access to, but those are small, local, specialty networks installed as either temporary arrays for specific geologic experiments, or mineral probing. And those are hardly setup for monitoring large quakes or nuclear blasts.

I wonder if they will ever make information less public. I doubt the new SuspiciouS0bserver app will make anyone happy. What if they create a panic at some point by reporting a huge earthquake to come.

Hi TA

Got a question for you.

Aprox. 8:10pm CST I went onto USGS and there were 3 small 1+ quakes in Montana. When I started to look at them individually, they disappeared.

Does this have anything to do with what you are talking about?


LOL!!!
8:19pm CST. They are back.


Hahaha,
821pm CST. There gone again.

Don't worry we'd never get that lucky.