Washington Quake Made Art

March 13 -- When a 6.8-magnitude earthquake shook the Pacific Northwest on Feb. 28, it cracked sidewalks, toppled buildings and, in a small shop in Port Townsend, Wash., carved what thousands of people are now calling earthquake art.

"You never think about an earthquake as being artistic — it's violent and destructive," says Norman MacLeod, president of Gaelic Wolf Consulting in Port Townsend. "But in the middle of all that chaos, this fine delicate artwork was created."

The "delicate" artwork MacLeod refers to is an intricate, rose-like shape that was reportedly formed in sand by a trembling pendulum during the 45 seconds the quake shook the Pacific Northwest.

The pendulum, which was on display at a Port Townsend charm shop called Mind Over Matter, features a pointed weight at the end of a long wire that traces lines in a tray of sand. Since images of the unusual pendulum pattern were distributed over the Internet, the store's owner, Jason Ward, has been swamped by hundreds of e-mails requesting models of the Pennsylvania-made device.

A Rose? An Eye?

At first Ward didn't notice what patterns the pendulum had recorded.

"I was just relieved nothing had come crashing down," says Ward. "Then one of my employees noticed the design. I said, 'My god, it's an eye!'"

The pattern features a central design of short, squiggly strokes surrounded by curved lines that taper into an elliptical shape. Longer lines frame the central image.

Ward says the rose-like shape was created as the ground shook the tray of sand beneath the pendulum and the curved lines formed during the quake's lower frequency waves. The longer lines that surround the pattern were formed earlier by people in the shop who had set the pendulum in swing.

After posting the images of the pattern on a web site (see link at right) MacLeod has been receiving thousands of letters from people theorizing what the shape might mean. Some have said it is the eye of Poseidon, a Greek god, others say it's a rose, some have even suggested it's a recording of a top secret government weapon designed to trigger earthquakes.