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Archive 2015 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains

  
 
Peter Figen
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


This is one of about 250 seismic sensors in southern California, all linked and reporting to CalTech. To me it feels like a relic of the cold war, which is interesting because it's located a few hundred yards from a real relic of the cold war - a Nike missile monitoring station.





Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains, Ca.




Apr 27, 2015 at 10:31 PM
TrojanHorse
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


OK, seriously - who's looking at this and doesn't immediately think cheesy B-movie alien landing craft?

Where'd you find this thing and how do you get there? Neat image, thanks for sharing. It needs some fog billowing out the bottom to complete my invasion vision.



Apr 28, 2015 at 01:34 AM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


Yes, I completely agree with you, which is also helped by the black and white. Hey, what the hell happened to the metadata. It's supposed to be f/11 at 21mm. That's weird.

Here's a link to the San Vicente Park website: http://www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=54

It's on dirt Mulholland west of the 405.

The actual sensor is up a spur of a fire road that runs just south of the park. Hopefully this satellite link will stay zoomed in on the sensor:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1266821,-118.5140579,165m/data=!3m1!1e3




Apr 28, 2015 at 02:05 AM
Fast6
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


Sweet light, Peter.

The exif is right with my browser extension; FM code just pulled it wrong.



Apr 28, 2015 at 12:25 PM
Bryston3bsst
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


Did you give a good, hard shake or hit it with something real heavy?

Course if you did you'd probably end up in jail.



Apr 28, 2015 at 04:44 PM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


I didn't do that, but I live in L.A., so I support all they're doing to learn more about quakes. There are warning signs to not disturb the area, but apparently some jerk did exactly what you suggested and knocked a big hole in the back side from where I shot. At least there was no graffiti.


Apr 28, 2015 at 05:38 PM
sjms
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


what you see is the top end or xmitter assy. all the sensor hardware is down below ground under it. up to a point the system is designed to resist stupidity.


Apr 29, 2015 at 08:44 AM
shymon
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


Very interesting. I live near Caltech and hike a lot in the Santa Monicas and San Gabes and have never seen or noticed one of these things. I like the image in black and white, too.


Apr 29, 2015 at 12:53 PM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


For those of you here in lo-cal, there was a pretty good interview on the KPCC morning show with A Martinez interviewing a geophysicist about the quakes in Nepal. He talked a lot about these devices and how they worked and that they have about enough memory - about 16 gigs - built in that lets them record about two weeks worth of data, then starts over, writing over the beginning. They are trying to get to the devices in Nepal before they start that re-writing process. He said that the upper part of the unit housed the GPS and the sensor part was buried in the ground. The whole thing is connected to a solar panel a few yards away. While it is possible to pull data from these remotely, the units in Nepal are on such a slow connection that they can only pull the once every 15 seconds data rather than the five times a second data, and even then it is sometimes corrupted.

I did come across a map of where these are located in Southern California. There must be a few up above Pasadena.



Apr 29, 2015 at 02:44 PM
Tuan Le
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


Pretty cool image. Definitely alien looking or some retro base station from Flash Gordon.


May 01, 2015 at 12:45 AM
sdb777
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


Wonder what they would think if you just started rapping on it with a baseball bat?


Nifty find!!!



Scott (B&W works here) B



May 01, 2015 at 07:21 PM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Seismic Sensor, Santa Monica Mountains


The part that I photographed apparently only holds the GPS transmitter. The seismic sensing part is buried in the ground underneath the unit. I'm sure that there must be routines that filter out things like people walking in the area or someone knocking on the support structure. Plus, there are over 250 of these linked in southern California, so there would tend to be an anomaly canceling effect if the same jolt was not experienced by other sensors in the area.


May 01, 2015 at 07:50 PM





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