An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 occurred on February 1, 2001, near Olympia, Washington. This earthquake caused approximately $2 billion worth of damage. This damage included the destruction of sidewalks and structures.
A local shop in Port Townsend named 'Mind Over Matter' was reported. The shop displays a sand-tracing pendulum. It was described as having a pointed weight at the end of a long wire suspended over a tray of sand.
The sand pendulum drew a peculiar pattern on the sand, creating an oddly beautiful shape resembling a rose.
Jason Ward, the store's owner, was unaware of the oddly beautiful pendulum creation until his employee discovered the unusual patterns. Excitedly, they exclaimed, 'My god, it's an eye!'
The amazing image was posted on the internet by Norman MacLeod, president of Gaelic Wolf Consulting, and received thousands of emails from local people seeking an explanation for the unusual phenomenon.
The image revealed that the soft exterior curves of the rose depicted the typical movements of the pendulum. The earthquake created the center, or 'pupil,' resembling an eye, and preserved the movement of seismic activity long after it had passed.
A geophysicist explained: “The sand preserves two features of the earthquake waves quite nicely. The "flower" in the center records the surface movements associated with the higher-frequency waves that arrived first. The outer, larger-amplitude oscillations record the lower-frequency waves that arrived later. I suspect that the axis of these oscillations was almost north-south (i.e., directed towards the epicenter).”
