But when the ground-shaking events occur alongside plummeting temperatures, cryoseisms become a more likely possibility-especially in regions that experience seasonal frost, like Canada and the Midwestern and Northeastern regions of the United States. Small-magnitude seismic events like frost quakes can be hard to pinpoint since chemical explosions, mining-induced quakes, construction blasts and even major cultural events (like Ohio State football games) can generate their own seismic waves, according to the 2018 University of Western Ontario paper. Surprisingly, it can be hard to differentiate a frost quake from your average bang. Zoet speaks from experience: He once felt a frost quake near the university’s campus, which is located on a strip of land separating Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. Bodies of water like a pond or a river can also provide reservoirs of moisture to saturate nearby sediment, explains Lucas Zoet, a glaciologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A snow cover between one and six inches that is too thin to insulate the ground from an intense cold snap can also be a contributing factor. “It’s got to get cold quick, so all this water starts to freeze at the same time and there’s nowhere for it to go,” Jackson says, “Eventually it just snaps.”įrost quakes also tend to occur in permeable and absorbent materials like sand or gravel that can easily become steeped in moisture from rain, sleet, or snow showers. Most importantly, cryoseisms require a sudden drop in temperature from near-freezing conditions to subzero ones. A certain set of weather events come together to create the perfect conditions for frost quakes, they say. “This ear-splitting, fast-action fracture and clamor is a frost quake,” explain a pair of Illinois meteorologists, Steven Battaglia and David Changnon, in a 2016 article. As underground water freezes, it expands and builds up pressure until a cryoseism explosively relieves the stress, like an overfilled balloon finally popping. At subzero temperatures, the upper surface of ice is brittle-but underneath lies a more plastic, moveable ice, according to a 2018 paper by University of Western Ontario earth scientists. The same thing that happens in your freezer can happen underground. That’s why an ice tray brimming with water produces domed ice cubes. While other liquids shrink as they cool, water actually expands by about 10 percent when it freezes. But unlike earthquakes-which occur when the slow-moving plates of the Earth’s crust suddenly slip-cryoseisms are caused by sudden cracks in frozen soil or underground water, and are weather-driven, not tectonic.Īs simple as it is, water does some crazy things when it gets chilly. Like earthquakes, frost quakes (also known as cryoseisms) can generate tremors, thundering sensations and explosive noises. “If you’ve never heard them and then you hear one, it’s eerie.” “They’re kind of strange,” says Brian Jackson, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who grew up with the cracks and booms of frost quakes in Rochester, New York. Meteorologists weighed in with their own explanation: Frost quakes. Others wondered if frigid cold could kill birds mid-flight and send them spiraling downward. Another said she searched her whole home for intruders, knife in hand. One woman said she fretted all night about her pipes, roof and furnace. Last January, as Chicago suffered through a multiday subzero freeze, local TV station WGN asked viewers whether they’d been startled by any nocturnal bangs or booms. But they are weather-driven, not tectonic. Frost quakes (also known as cryoseisms) can generate tremors, thundering sensations and explosive noises.
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