Peter Byrne was at Devil’s Hole during the 2012 seiche, and wrote about the event for Scientific American. Then, too, it triggered a pupfish spawn, leading Byrnes to tease, “environmental disaster, it seems, acted as an aphrodisiac.” A video of the seiche went viral, and currently has over a million views.ĭuring the 2010 seiche, biologist Paul Barrett hypothesized that the infrequent events played an important role in refreshing the Devil’s Hole ecosystem. “Earthquakes, such as a 1978 temblor in Mexico, can set up waves that clear the spawning shelf of the algae upon which the pupfish rely, however depending upon the time of year, the algae may regenerate quite rapidly,” Barrett said in the USGS statement. This frees important space between the substrate particles where the Devils Hole pupfish larvae seek refuge.” “Furthermore, quakes can serve a useful purpose in shaking silt and other fine particles that have washed into Devils Hole off of the spawning shelf and into the deeper waters. Not every earthquake sets off a mating frenzy.

Circuli desrt pupfish