This is a truly unique recording. Several years ago I found out that I am the only person in the world who captured audio of the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the volcano in Washington state. I was in high school in 1980, living in Newport, Oregon, 140 miles southwest of the mountain. May 18 was a beautiful sunny morning, and as we were eating breakfast we heard several distant "thuds" or booms. We went outside, and noticed that they were coming from the north. We had no idea what they were, and since Mt. St. Helens was so far away, we "knew" it could not be the mountain. But in the back of my mind I thought, "could it be?". So I grabbed a tape recorder and set it in a window box upstairs on the north side of the house. This recording is an excerpt of what I captured. The entire tape is about eight minutes long. Unfortunately the quality is poor, but it was the only tape recorder we owned. I started recording about two minutes after we heard the first boom. In total there were about 10 booms over a period of about ten minutes. I never did anything with the tape because of the poor quality. Also I figured that the USGS, etc. had also recorded the sound. But I found out recently that no one else made an audio recording. The booms were picked up on seismometers, but no audio was recorded. As I understand it, when the mountain first erupted it sent a low-frequency "shock wave" straight up. This wave reflected off several layers of the atmosphere, bouncing back to the ground in a large donut-shaped ring about 50 to 300 miles around the mountain. People within 50 miles of the mountain did not hear anything. I am not sure if what we heard was one "shock wave" reflected many times between layers of the atmosphere and the ground, or a series of waves. The booms are very low frequency, thus you should listen with headphones or larger speakers. On laptop speakers you probably won't hear anything. Many people who heard the booms described them as a series of "thuds". I also believe that this may be the only audio recording of this phenomena from any volcano. I imagine that the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 sounded similar to this (but louder). I wonder too if anyone knows of any atmospheric audio recorded from a distance greater than this (140 miles/225 km)? If you would like to study the entire recording, please contact me.
UPDATE 6/8/2014: I have uploaded the original, untouched recording here: http://www.freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/240257/
Type
Wave (.wav)
Duration
0:43.453
File size
3.7 MB
Sample rate
44100.0 Hz
Bit depth
16 bit
Channels
Mono
Comments
15 years, 5 months ago
This really is an amazing recording.
It takes an unimaginable amount of energy and power to project a sound wave at what I'm guessing to be frequencies between 20hz-80hz at anywhere near +1 db, for a distance of 140 miles. There's likely a lot of stuff below 20hz but that's about the limit of what we can hear.
15 years, 7 months ago
rare. fantastic. it resonates within the body, even in its low volume.
15 years, 8 months ago
I was 1 day away from turning 6 when it blew, my mom was out on a break from her work having a smoke (Vancouver, BC) and heard the boooooom...she thought it was an ICBM!!!
I remember my grandparents in Couer d'Alene calling to say their vehicles etc were covered in ash.
15 years, 9 months ago
Wwwaaaayyyy killer man. Thank you for sharing this. I am over here in Vancouver WA and have been here all 33+ years of my life. I was four when the mountain put on it's show that morning.
As usual on Sunday's, my Dad and I went to the Winchelle's (S) donut shop over here on Grand Ave. and 4th Plain (It is now some "cash-quicky-mart" or something). But we had gone to get our doughnuts and on the way back my Dad had noted to me about looking up toward the mountain because of the lightining going on over in the area above it and assumed the mountain had gone off. I don't remember him asking me that necessarily - I was only four but it was how he recalled things that morning. But, I DO remember standing on the porch that afternoon and early evening, and looking to the NE as the plumes of ash and all went up into the atmosphere - totally remember that, and remember KGW going on about it as well that evening on the tube'.
When I would go across town to visit my grandmothers house on occasion, I would always go straight into the dining room and pull out the chair next to the telephone and stand up on it to watch the mountain for any activity; she had also saved clips out of The Columbian newspaper for me as well. ...Just pure facination with it all - as we all are.
Thank you again for sharing this - truely a special piece of history!
16 years, 1 month ago
Interesting that this sound effects people in a very similar fashion ...the word Fear comes up a lot..i also experienced this feeling..the feeling of your heart sinking...a mild adrenaline rush the brains way of telling you to get the fuck out of here ! run! Amazing piece of audio.Thank you
