Outdoors at a Graham farm and enclosed within a small padlocked gate for protection from meddling cattle, an antenna mast roughly 12 feet tall stands behind a weathered equipment-cabinet and a silver box covered in spider webs.
The curious trio of items, including the technical instruments inside the cabinet, are of no use to the property’s owner, but they do serve an important purpose.
The tiny site in rural Pierce County is one of roughly 650 seismic stations operated by a local organization across the Pacific Northwest to detect and monitor earthquakes in the region. When Mount Rainier experienced a rapid succession of small temblors this summer — the volcano’s largest “swarm” ever recorded — the farm’s station was a key contributor to recording that activity…