Earthquake sensors record unprecedented drop in human activity due to pandemic

[Zorro]

Such a sweeping effect has never been seen in the history of earthquake science

The coronavirus pandemic and the associated economic shutdowns led to an unprecedented drop in the seismic “noise” caused by human activity, scientists reported Thursday.

The shutdown effect registered by seismometers is akin to that typically seen in the middle of the night and during holiday periods, only this one lasted from March to May and encompassed almost every corner of the planet — a stunning global quiescence never before seen in the history of earthquake science.

The report, published in the journal Science, has an unusually vast set of authors: 76 scientists from 27 countries, ranging from Norway to New Zealand. The instruments tell a consistent story: The surface of the Earth became unusually calm and quiet as the virus raced across the planet earlier this year. Constrained by the coronavirus pandemic, human activity diminished when countries began shuttering their economies and urging people to engage in social distancing.

“You wouldn’t expect a disease to show up on a seismometer,” said report co-author Celeste Labedz, a doctoral candidate in geophysics at the California Institute of Technology.

The study gathered data from 268 research stations and saw a shutdown effect almost everywhere. Reports came in from Turkey, Chile, Costa Rica, Canada, Australia, Iran and even from tiny Luxembourg, as well as many other nations. Some of the seismometers are in crowded urban centers and college campuses; but others are in remote desert or mountain locations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/07/23/human-seismic-noise-coronavirus/

[Raine]

1. Very interesting

Thanks for posting this..