[meteorite-list] Florida 'Earthquake' Likely A Sonic Boom From Fighter Jets

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:56:26 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200701111756.JAA20930_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/jan/11/did_you_hear_boom_it_was_most_likely_jet/

Did you hear the boom? It was most likely a jet

Was it an earthquake? Was it a truck? Nope. the sound that rattled the
area was the sound barrier being broken by F-16s, experts say

By Chris W. Colby, Jeremy Cox
Naples News (Florida)
January 11, 2007

Meteorologists believe the most likely cause for the quaking that some
residents in western Collier and Lee counties felt Wednesday was a sonic
boom from aircraft flying off Florida's west coast.

But seismologists are reporting three small earthquakes off Puerto Rico
and the Dominican Republic as recently as about an hour before the quake
was first reported in Collier.

Residents from Marco Island to Cape Coral reported a quake around 10
a.m. Collier County Emergency Management officials contacted the
National Weather Service to try to find out the source. No injuries or
property damages were reported.

Robert Molleda of Miami's National Weather Service office said
meteorologists are uncertain of the cause. But officials at Key West
Naval Air Station in Boca Chica reported the presence of several
supersonic aircraft in the area Wednesday morning.

"When they exceed the sound barrier, there's a sonic boom. We believe
the weather conditions were such that they were conducive to sound waves
traveling a great distance from the source," Molleda said.

The calm, dry, cool weather conditions Wednesday would contribute more
to what occurred than the warm, wet weather more typical in Florida,
Molleda said.

"There's no way to confirm this. But it's happened in the past," Molleda
said.

A visiting squadron of Air Force F-16s were "doing a routine training
mission" within the Key West Naval Air Station's training boundaries at
about 10 a.m. Wednesday when at least one broke the sound barrier, said
Trice Denny, a spokeswoman at the station.

She said she's not sure if the airplane caused a sonic boom. A plane can
break the sound barrier without causing one.

The planes, which were from the U.S. Air Force's 115th Fighter Wing,
were about 70 miles southwest of Naples and about 20 miles within the
boundary of the training area over the Gulf of Mexico, Denny said. She
agreed that the clear, dry weather conditions carried the boom farther
than usual.

"If it was any closer to you guys, you really would have felt it," she said.

North Naples resident Richard Lyons said he sure did.

"My sliding glass doors started vibrating wildly. The noise was like a
rumbling truck almost. I'd say it went on for about 5 seconds," Lyons said.

Lyons, 60, lives on Mill Run Circle and felt the vibration at 9:52 a.m.
He said he's experienced similar sensations at his home in years past.

"They're talking about it being a sonic boom, but that wasn't my feel
about it. I felt it was some kind of earthquake," Lyons said.

Geophysicists at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., said
whatever caused the shaking probably wasn't an earthquake. The nearest
seismometer, or earthquake monitoring station, is at the Disney
Wilderness Preserve near Orlando, and it showed nothing out of the
ordinary, said John Bellini, a geophysicist.

However, according to the USGS Web site, three earthquakes were reported
between 10:15 p.m. Tuesday and 8:58 a.m. Wednesday: two offshore of
Puerto Rico and one offshore of the Dominican Republic. The quakes
ranged from 3.1 to 4.6 in magnitude.

At first the Collier County Emergency Operations Center reported an
earthquake occurred 253 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola and
registered 6.0 on the Richter scale. Thirty minutes later, EOC officials
withdrew that.

Fred DiFabio is the general manager of the Mole Hole in downtown Naples,
a store specializing in gifts and glassware. He noticed the front
windows shaking just before 10 a.m.

"The windows started shaking and I'm thinking, 'Wow, must be a very
strong wind out there.' But after maybe 30 or 40 seconds it must have
stopped. I looked to see if somebody was banging on the doors, but
nobody was there," DiFabio said.

In Lee County, the Lee Sheriff's Office began fielding several calls
about the incident about 10 a.m., spokesman Deputy Angelo Vaughn said.

Gerald Campbell, chief of planning for Lee County Emergency Management,
received calls from the Sanibel Police Department and the Town of Fort
Myers Beach about a mysterious seismic event.

Campbell made a call to the state's emergency communications
headquarters in Tallahassee, which would be one of the first to get
reports of an earthquake.

"In this case they didn't have any reports," Campbell said. "If it had
been an earthquake, we would have found out pretty quickly."

There were no reports in Lee County of damage or injury, Campbell said.

Had it been an earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico, a tsunami would not be
a big concern in Southwest Florida, Campbell said. Faults on the ocean
floor of the Gulf of Mexico are not the kind that create huge tsunamis,
he said.

A few employees at Southwest Florida International Airport felt the
effects, spokeswoman Barbara-Anne Urrutia said.

However, others in the airport, including air controllers in the tower,
didn't feel anything, she said.

The event didn't affect air travel, Urrutia said.
Received on Thu 11 Jan 2007 12:56:26 PM PST