If anyone wants to see what seismograph looks like when it is busy, check out this link.
Barry Inlet Seismo
It is sitting just about on top of where the 7.7M earthquake happened last week. What it is recording are the aftershocks. A few 4+M earthquakes a day. Nearly constant smaller shakers, and the occasional 6+M aftershock. It will be busy for a few more days at least, if not a week or two. A few days ago all three bands were just about solid black, so it's settled down considerably. For comparison look at the
seismo station in Bella Bella.
This station is about 45 seconds away as the "ground waves fly".... so if you see a big squiggle happening at Barry Inlet, switch over to Bella Bella to see it arrive there. Because of the distance, it will be a much smaller squiggle... but because the Barry Inlet squiggles so easily go to solid black, the Bella Bella station often looks more dramatic.
Background: A 7.7M earthquake occurred at 8:04pm Pacific Time, Oct 27th just off the Haida Gwaii (Formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), which is just off the British Columbian coast (west coast of Canada)... a little south of the Alaskan panhandle...
In this case it was mostly a slip movement so only a small tsunami was generated - less than 2 feet in Hawaii. If the earthquake had happened a little bit further south to where the Juan de Fuca plate starts it would have been a vertical motion, which creates tsunamis. Potentially large tsunamis... So, we got lucky this time.
Just in case you're bored of the east coast disaster coverage ....