http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/2131260p-2026900c.html
Morning rumble thought to be sonic boom BY NOAH HAGLUND, The Island Packet (South Carolina) January 25, 2003 What was that noise? Was it a bird? A plane? An earthquake perhaps? At about 10 a.m. Friday, residents all over Beaufort County heard a long, low rumble and felt the ground shake. The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office dispatch received puzzled inquiries from St. Helena to Hilton Head Island and almost everywhere in between, spokeswoman Debbie Szpanka said. Some thought it was an earthquake tremor, others a jet breaking the sound barrier. Scientific evidence, it turns out, points to the latter. "What we think we recorded was a sonic boom offshore," said Pradeep Talwani, director of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of South Carolina. "The shaking would be perceived like a small earthquake," he said. Talwani said the movement hit different seismic monitoring points at different times, traveling from one to the next at the speed of sound. This pattern happens every time a jet breaks the sound barrier offshore, he said. In contrast, during earthquakes, monitors in different places detect the movement at about the same time, he said. "We're always flying," said Gunnery Sgt. Terence Peck of the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. "We haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary, just the usual exercises." The Marines also weren't detonating any ordnance or doing artillery drills Friday, activities that would have produced shockwaves, Peck said. But flying, he said, may include sonic booms. But what Paul Zatek felt in his office on Friday morning was far from ordinary. "It was so noticeable ... the front door of our building was rattling open and shut," said Zatek from his work on New Orleans Road. "The whole building shook for five seconds." "We didn't know if it was an explosion or what," he said. Contact Noah Haglund at 706-8138 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
