The Earth is now speaking to us. People have been so quiet these days that now earth’s natural signals can be heard. Months of reduced global human activities due to the lockdown phases have caused almost a 50% reduction in the seismic noise caused by human-linked vibrations. Studies say that it is the longest and most pronounced drop ever recorded which began in late January and gradually made to the peak between March and May this year. This period of quiescence is named ‘anthropause’ by the researchers.
Seismic noises are those that travel like waves produced by vibrations within the earth. These noises are measured using seismometers. Not only earthquakes, volcanoes, etc., trigger these waves but also human activities like travel, industry, etc. Over the past few decades, there is a gradual increase in the noise since the population and industries have grown so much. But the change in the human lifestyle due to the pandemic gave scientists the opportunity to listen in more detail to the natural vibrations without any man-made distractions.
The Royal Observatory of Belgium and five other institutions around the world including the Imperial College, London, held new research on this change and found that it was in the densely populated areas that showed more dampening of seismic noises. Dr.Stephen Hicks from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering of Imperial College said, “The lockdown caused by coronavirus pandemic has given us a hint of vision into how human and natural noise interact within the earth. We hope this observation will create advanced studies and listen better to the earth and understand the signals we would have otherwise missed.”
It has also come into notice that in urban areas, especially during the daytime, formerly concealed earthquake signals appeared much clearer during the lockdown. Social distancing, closure of services, drop-in tourism, and travel had caused this tremendous change in activities on the earth and also in the lifestyle of people. Our minds are healing. The earth is healing.
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