![](http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/15983_414337805303331_1876832037_n.jpg)
![](http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4131/5052658352_0a2631cc68_z.jpg)
When a magnitude 6.8 earthquake shook Olympia, Wash., in 2001, shopowner Jason Ward discovered that a sand-tracing pendulum had recorded the vibrations in the image below.
Seismologists say that the "flower" at the center reflects the higher-frequency waves that arrived first; the outer, larger-amplitude oscillations record the lower-frequency waves that arrived later.
"You never think about an earthquake as being artistic -- it's violent and destructive," Norman MacLeod, president of Gaelic Wolf Consulting in Port Townsend, told ABC News. "But in the middle of all that chaos, this fine, delicate artwork was created."
![](http://www.futilitycloset.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-11-16-the-earthquake-rose.jpg)
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