The Alaskan wilderness is almost another world for us city folk—it's freezing cold, looks beautiful, and has bears that attack equipment designed to detect earthquakes.
That's exactly what happened earlier in October at a seismic station that is being monitored by the Alaska Earthquake Center.
Seismic stations themselves are places where they set up instruments to monitor how much the ground is shaking during earthquakes. Of course, this equipment also can detect other events, like what it looks like when fans are jumping around at a concert, or, of course, what happens when a bear doesn't like the look of the equipment.
The station essentially recorded a massive burst of activity for about 8 minutes right before it stopped measuring data, and while researchers didn't see the bear attack the station, the activity certainly wasn't an earthquake and based on the pattern of the activity, researchers think it was most likely a bear.
(Photo : AK Earthquake Center | Twitter)
While it might sound like a once-in-a-lifetime event, apparently it's
not uncommon to see wildlife attack equipment in the wilderness."This same station was damaged last year by what we think was a goat," said Scott Dalton, a field researcher, in an interview with KTUU News. "That time the solar panels had been crushed and we think a goat had rammed into it."
While it might be a more common occurrence than some of us might think, it could be a while before the center is repaired. According to Dalton, the repairs will have to wait until next year, which is when the team will be able to travel to the remote center and assess the damage done by the bear. In the meantime, there won't be a lack of data about seismic activity, with more than 400 stations in the region existing from Canada to Russia.
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