[meteorite-list] Mysterious Boom Shakes South Carolina Homes

From: VeIocity_at_aol.com <VeIocity_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Sep 22 13:53:47 2004
Message-ID: <2D93B645.690A034B.0083611C_at_aol.com>

I'm surprised that nobody in South Carolina offered a seismic explanation for the booming and house-rattling. It's not widely publicized, but South Carolina is the most likely site in the country for a catastrophic earthquake (forget California). Charleston has been flattened a couple of times in the last 200 years by big quakes, and the Seismic Survey has determined that there's sufficient tectonic stress right now for another really big one.

In a message dated 9/22/2004 1:21:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> writes:

>
>
>http://www.charleston.net/stories/092204/loc_22boom.shtml
>
>Unknown noise shakes James Island homes
>BY STEVE REEVES
>The Post and Courier (South Carolina)
>September 22, 2004
>
>The cause of a mysterious boom that rattled windows and shook houses on
>James Island late Tuesday morning remains unknown.
>
>Dozens of people called authorities about 10:30 a.m. when the sound
>reverberated across James Island.
>
>Officers were dispatched to determine whether the source of the noise
>might have been some sort of explosion, but the investigation turned up
>no clues.
>
>"We still don't know what it was," Charleston Police spokesman Charles
>Francis said.
>
>No severe weather was in the area at the time of the booming sound, and
>no earthquake activity was reported in the Lowcountry.
>
>Some people speculated that the sound was a sonic boom, perhaps caused
>by a military jet on a training mission.
>
>But military officials at the Charleston Air Force Base said no planes
>flying from that facility at the time of the noise would have made a
>sonic boom, which requires a plane to travel at more than 700 mph to
>break the sound barrier.
>
>Other nearby military facilities, such as the Marine Corps Air Station
>in Beaufort, also said their aircraft weren't responsible.
>
>A spokesman for the FAA in Atlanta said no civilian aircraft would have
>produced a sonic boom.
>
>A similar sound rocked the Lowcountry in August 2003. No cause was ever
>found, though some opined that it could have been "Seneca Guns," a folk
>explanation used to describe unexplained booms dating back to the
>18th-century.
>
>Some theorize that so-called Seneca Guns could be caused by gases being
>released from the ocean floor or a sudden rush of cold air hitting the
>Gulf Stream.
>
>
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Received on Wed 22 Sep 2004 01:51:34 PM PDT