This is the conclusion of an international study, published this week in the journal Science.
Never seen. An international study published in Science Thursday highlights an average 50% reduction in human-made seismic noise during containment, between January and May 2020.
Seismic noise, the set of permanent vibrations of the ground, has a multitude of causes. The wind, the waves are due to natural causes, then the automobile traffic, the machinery, originate from human causes.
The effects of confinement
According to scientists, there is a strong correlation between shutting down human and industrial activities and reducing man-made seismic noise.
“Between January and May 2020 we analyzed 337 stations (seismic, Editor’s note) from around the world, including 268 for which the data was usable. Sometimes the data is very bad because the station sensors are poorly installed or just too far away cities to observe something “, confides to Science and the future Corentin Caudron, volcano-seismologist at the Institute for Research for Development (IRD) and one of the signatories of the study.
185 of these seismic stations recorded a significant reduction in simiscus noise: between 50% to 80% reduction. This is the largest reduction in human-made seismic noise on record. The map below, published in the review study Science, thus shows the stations which recorded a reduction in seismic noise during confinement (in red), and those which did not (in blue).
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