Update on the "Booms" Heard In Region

While we still haven't found the source of the reported booming sounds heard throughout the area since the weekend. We have had some reports from listeners, including one who speculated it was sonic booms after hearing one, and observing a jet at a high rate of speed.  Others said they heard it was caused by blowing up beaver dams and stumps.

As I stated in an earlier blog, we have heard none where I live in Fulton County, and I have heard none while working in McCracken County.  It almost makes me think that while some might be hearing some booms, others are merely "thinking" they are hearing them.

As for the theory they could be caused by cryoseisms, or "ice quakes," I'm still extremely doubtful.  The soil temperature (measured at 4 inches) has never dipped below 34 in Paducah (well above freezing) and in fact, most of the time has hovered closer to between 37 and 41 degrees.  That's not nearly cold enough and deep enough to freeze the groundwater, which is needed to trigger a cryoseism.  Plus the fact that a cryoseism has never been confirmed south of the Great Lakes region and New England along with Canada.  Added to that, the fact that these mysterious "booms" are being also reported all the way into Mississippi and have been reported all over the South and the rest of the nation and have for years...winter and summer.

The most plausible explainations I've heard so far, are sonic booms, or even more plausible, private companies using surface charges to try to detect pockets of oil or minerals.  After all, we already know there's a lot of the area being surveyed for possible fracking operations.

We'll keep looking for the cause though!