A recent University of Arizona News article details the work of faculty member Terry Wallace as a practitioner of “forensic seismology” who uses earthquake data to yield clues on man-made incidents of international consequence. Monitoring of underground nuclear tests (currently under voluntary suspension by the US and USSR) are the most obvious such work, but there are many other examples such as the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk. Even astronomical phenomena are being explored by forensic seismology; researchers from Southern Methodist University have reported discovering seismic data that could come from “strange quark matter” hitting the Earth and passing right through on its trip thru space.
Perhaps the most mysterious use of forensic seismology to date was to provide some evidence for the so-called Aurora spyplane, which many believe created a series of sonic booms in June 1991 that were supposedly picked up by US Geological Survey seismographs in California. Apart from a few articles in California newspapers entitled “In Plane Sight?” and “The Secret Is Out” quoting USGS seismologist Jim Mori on this topic, little has been published in the way of followup….a coverup?