


The visualization shows seismic stations lit up as the storm approached Florida on Oct. 26. The earthquake monitors detected rolling seismic waves caused by Sandy's fierce winds out at sea.


The earthquake-monitoring network always "hears" a continuous hum of background noise generated in the ocean, called microseism, said Alex Hutko, a seismologist at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) in Seattle, and creator of the Hurricane Sandy animation.





People can't feel the shaking because the movement is extremely small. "These seismic instruments are the most sensitive instruments ever built, and they detect motion on the order of nanometers," Hutko told OurAmazingPlanet.


One panel of the movie also displays atmospheric pressure, showing the cold front that morphed Sandy into what forecasters called a "Frankenstorm" after it moved ashore.




This is the first time IRIS data has visualized a hurricane hit the United States, Hutko said. "As this was happening, thought it would be pretty neat to plot. I ended up staying up through the night two nights in a row," he said.


Pounding surf churned up by Hurricane Sandy also set off earthquake monitors along the East Coast before the storm's landfall on Oct. 29. The storm ranks second only to Hurricane Katrina in its kinetic energy, a measure of destructive power.




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