Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday August 03 2020, @12:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the accidental-detection dept.

Alaskan seismometers record the northern lights:

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, occurs when solar winds--plasma ejected from the Sun's surface--meet the protective magnetic field that surrounds the Earth. The collision of particles produces colorful lights in the sky and creates fluctuations in the magnetic field that are sometimes called solar or space "storms." Magnetometers deployed on the Earth's surface are the primary instrument used to detect these fluctuations, which can significantly impact electrical grids, GPS systems and other crucial infrastructure. The aurora is commonly visible in wintertime in high-latitude regions such as Alaska.

The seismometers in the study are part of the USArray Transportable Array, a network of temporary seismometers placed across North America as part of the EarthScope project. The array in Alaska and western Canada was completed in the fall of 2017.

[...] These temporary seismic stations are not shielded from magnetic fields, unlike more permanent stations that are often cloaked in mu-metal, a nickel-iron alloy that directs magnetic fields around the instrument's sensors. As a result, "I was blown away by how well you can record magnetic storms across the array," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Adam Ringler, a co-author on the SRL paper.

Last month, Ringler and his colleagues published a paper demonstrating how the array's 200-plus seismometers in Alaska can be used to record space weather, potentially augmenting the 13 magnetometers in operation in the state.

Journal Reference:
Carl Tape, Adam T. Ringler, Don L. Hampton. Recording the Aurora at Seismometers across Alaska, Seismological Research Letters (DOI: 10.1785/0220200161)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:46PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:46PM (#1030805)

    So how does a magnetometer become a seismometer? The article makes the jump with no explanation.
    Magnetometer == detect magnetic fields.
    Seismometer == detect earth mechanical movement.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday August 03 2020, @06:23PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday August 03 2020, @06:23PM (#1030838) Journal

    It's the other way round: The seismometers become magnetometers. By not being adequately magnetically shielded.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.