Both natural events (like earthquakes) and man-made vibrations (caused by vehicles and heavy machinery) cause the Earth’s crust to move. And because seismologists are constantly measuring these vibrations and their frequency, they’ve noticed a drop of roughly 30-50% in “seismic noise” now that most of the world is under quarantine.

In other words, now that we’re all stuck in our homes and daily life has ground to a halt, the Earth’s crust is “humming” a bit less.

Interesting, but not shocking.

And it’s certainly not something to panic about – in fact, it might have a beneficial outcome. Detection devices that can record smaller earthquakes and volcanic events will have a period in which more data can be collected without so much interference from us and all the “background noise” we create.

The news was announced in the major scientific journal Nature, where seismologist Thomas Lecocq reported that the instruments at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels had recorded the noise reduction.

But he also noted that this was not a rare occurrence – in fact, something similar happens briefly each year on Christmas Day when much of the world is tucked into their homes to celebrate the winter holidays and many construction workers are away from worksites.

It’s safe to say that the quarantine measures that the city has undertaken due to the spread of COVID-19 are what’s causing the seismic noise to fall by about one-third.

Science writer Elizabeth Gibney reported in Nature that this drop has made the observatory’s surface-level equipment nearly as sensitive as deeply buried seismometers. That means any seismic events that occur while we’re all on lockdown might be able to teach scientists a little bit more about the activity in the Earth’s crust since they won’t have to try to account for the extra noise produced by humans when they assess it.

The team in Brussels isn’t the only one to notice this phenomenon. A Caltech graduate student in geophysics, Celeste Labedz, also tweeted that their instruments had recorded a similar fall in noise in Los Angeles.

“The drop is seriously wild,” she said.

But not every monitoring station on Earth will reap the same benefits from the lack of human movement.

Emily Wolin, a geologist at the US Geological Survey in Albuquerque, New Mexico pointed out that “many stations are purposefully located in remote areas or deep boreholes to avoid human noise.” These won’t benefit as much – or at all.

While sensational headlines have led people who don’t investigate further to believe that the planet has oddly stopped spinning, there’s truly nothing to worry about.

There’s no evidence that getting a break from human activity is benefiting the Earth’s crust in any way – or that the relative silence is damaging. So don’t freak out!

But it is nice to know that all of this sacrifice might do something good for science, even if it’s limited. Lecocq said that normally the equipment in Brussels is “basically useless” in detecting low-frequency seismic events, but now it’s collecting data.

In addition, it does allow us to see where in the world people are truly abiding by the life-or-death quarantine measures.

“From the seismological point of view, we can motivate people to say, ‘OK look, people. You feel like you’re alone at home, but we can tell you that everyone is home. Everyone is doing the same. Everyone is respecting the rules,'” Lecocq told CNN.

Equally, it may be able to tell us where they’re being selfishly flouted.

And while we’re glad this quarantine is of some benefit to scientists, there’s no doubt we’d all like to get back to our lives as soon as possible!

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: Nature, CNN