Around the world, seismologists are observing a lot less ambient seismic noise — the vibrations generated by cars, trains, buses and people going about their daily lives. In the absence of that noise, Earth's upper crust is moving just a little less.
Once-crowded city streets are now empty. Highway traffic has slowed to a minimum. And fewer and fewer people can be found milling about outside.
Global containment measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus have seemingly made the world much quieter. Scientists are noticing it, too.There's an unlikely beneficiary of coronavirus: The planetThomas Lecocq, a geologist and seismologist at the Royal Observatory in Belgium, first pointed out this phenomenon in Brussels.
— Seismologie.be March 20, 2020 The daily hum of city life means that the station in Brussels wouldn't typically pick up on smaller seismic events. Seismologists would instead rely on a separate borehole station, which uses a pipe deep in the ground to monitor seismic activity."But for the moment, because of the city's quietness, it's almost as good as the one on the bottom," Lecocq said.Seismologists in other cities are seeing similar effects in their own cities.
— Paula Koelemeijer March 31, 2020 Celeste Labedz, a PhD student at the California Institute of Technology, posted a graph showing an especially stark drop in Los Angeles. Still, seismologists say the reduction in noise is a sobering reminder of a virus that has sickened more than one million people, killed tens of thousands and brought the normal rhythms of life to a halt.
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