Pacific Northwest Seismic Network

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The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, or PNSN collects and studies ground motions from about 400 seismometers in Oregon and Washington to monitor volcanic and tectonic activity, and gives advice and information, and works to mitigate earthquake hazard.

Damaging earthquakes are well known in the Pacific Northwest, including several larger than magnitude 7, most notably the M9 Cascadia earthquake in 1700AD and the M7.2 earthquake in about 900AD on the Seattle Fault. In 1965, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake shook the Seattle, Washington, area causing substantial damage and seven deaths. This event spurred the installation of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) in 1969 to monitor regional earthquake activity.

Earthquakes are recorded frequently on Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, and Mount Hood. After successfully using seismic activity to predict the at 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption, monitoring was expanded to other Cascade volcanos. The PNSN, in conjunction with the Cascade Volcano Observatory of the USGS, now monitors seismicity at all of the Cascade volcanos in Washington and Oregon.

It is the second largest of the regional seismic networks in the ANSS (Advanced National Seismic System), simpler than the CISN (California Integrated Seismic Network), and with more data than the networks in Alaska, Utah, Nevada, Hawaii and the New Madrid area. The network is funded by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the Department of Energy, and the State of Washington. The Network operates from the Earth and Space Sciences Department at the University of Washington in Seattle, and its data archiving is abetted by the Data Management Center of IRIS Consortium in Seattle.