Global quieting of high-frequency seismic noise due to COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures

Creators: Lecocq, Thomas; Hicks, Stephen P.; Van Noten, Koen; van Wijk, Kasper; Koelemeijer, Paula; De Plaen, Raphael S. M.; Massin, Frédérick; Hillers, Gregor; Anthony, Robert E.; Apoloner, Maria-Theresia; Arroyo-Solórzano, Mario; Assink, Jelle D.; Büyükakpınar, Pinar; Cannata, Andrea; Cannavo, Flavio; Carrasco, Sebastian; Caudron, Corentin; Chaves, Esteban J.; Cornwell, David G.; Craig, David; den Ouden, Olivier F. C.; Diaz, Jordi; Donner, Stefanie; Evangelidis, Christos P.; Evers, Läslo; Fauville, Benoit; Fernandez, Gonzalo A.; Giannopoulos, Dimitrios; Gibbons, Steven J.; Girona, Társilo; Grecu, Bogdan; Grunberg, Marc; Hetényi, György; Horleston, Anna; Inza, Adolfo; Irving, Jessica C. E.; Jamalreyhani, Mohammadreza; Kafka, Alan; Koymans, Mathijs R.; Labedz, Celeste R.; Larose, Eric; Lindsey, Nathaniel J.; McKinnon, Mika; Megies, Tobias; Miller, Meghan S.; Minarik, William; Moresi, Louis; Márquez-Ramírez, Víctor H.; Möllhoff, Martin; Nesbitt, Ian M.; Niyogi, Shankho; Ojeda, Javier; Oth, Adrien; Proud, Simon; Pulli, Jay; Retailleau, Lise; Rintamäki, Annukka E.; Satriano, Claudio; Savage, Martha K.; Shani-Kadmiel, Shahar; Sleeman, Reinoud; Sokos, Efthimios; Stammler, Klaus; Stott, Alexander E.; Subedi, Shiba; Sørensen, Mathilde B.; Taira, Taka'aki; Tapia, Mar; Turhan, Fatih; van der Pluijm, Ben; Vanstone, Mark; Vergne, Jerome; Vuorinen, Tommi A. T.; Warren, Tristram; Wassermann, Joachim; Xiao, Han

Abstract

Human activity causes vibrations that propagate into the ground as high-frequency seismic waves. Measures to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused widespread changes in human activity, leading to a months-long reduction in seismic noise of up to 50%. The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record. Although the reduction is strongest at surface seismometers in populated areas, this seismic quiescence extends for many kilometers radially and hundreds of meters in depth. This quiet period provides an opportunity to detect subtle signals from subsurface seismic sources that would have been concealed in noisier times and to benchmark sources of anthropogenic noise. A strong correlation between seismic noise and independent measurements of human mobility suggests that seismology provides an absolute, real-time estimate of human activities.

Additional Information

© 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 10 June 2020; accepted 14 July 2020. Published online 23 July 2020. We sincerely thank two anonymous reviewers, T. Nissen-Meyer, and J. Slate for their comments, which have improved the manuscript. We are extremely grateful to all seismic network managers, operators, and technicians who have helped facilitate the raw global seismic dataset (24). We also kindly acknowledge all of the passionate community seismologists for running their "home" seismometers and contributing, indirectly, to a better understanding of Earth. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. government. We dedicate this community-led study to all essential workers who have kept our countries going during these difficult times. P.K. was funded by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF\R1\180377). P.B. and M.J. acknowledge support from the International Training Course "Seismology and Seismic Hazard Assessment" funded by the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and the German Federal Foreign Office through the German Humanitarian Assistance program (grant S08-60 321.50 ALL 03/19). P.B. also acknowledges financial support from the Boğaziçi University Research Fund (BAP 15683). O.F.C.d.O acknowledges funding from a Young Investigator Grant from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP project RGY0072/2017). C.P.E. and E.S. acknowledge funding from the HELPOS Project "Hellenic Plate Observing System" (MIS 5002697). L.E. and S.S.-K. acknowledge funding from a VIDI project from the Dutch Research Council (NWO project 864.14.005). G.A.F. acknowledges contributions from the Observatorio San Calixto, which is supported by the Air Force Technical Application Center (AFTAC). C.R.L. acknowledges funding from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (grant DGE‐1745301). V.-H.M. and R.D.P. acknowledge support from grant CONACYT-299766. R.D.P. acknowledges support from the UNAM-DGAPA postdoctoral scholarship. J.O. acknowledges support from the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Scholarship ANID-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional/2020-21200903). S.P. acknowledges financial support from the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R013144/1). A.E.R. acknowledges support from the K.H. Renlund foundation. M.K.S. acknowledges the New Zealand Earthquake Commission (EQC project 20796). H.X. acknowledges support from a Multidisciplinary Research on the Coronavirus and its Impacts (MRCI) grant from UC Santa Barbara. The Australian Seismometers in Schools data used in this research are supported by AuScope, enabled by the Australian Commonwealth NCRIS program. A.O. acknowledges support from the project RESIST, funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy (contract SR/00/305) and the Luxembourg National Research Fund. Author contributions: T.L. designed and led the research. T.L., S.P.H., K.V.N., K.v.W., P.K., and R.S.M.D.P. processed and visualized the data and drafted the manuscript. F.M. contributed to the software development and provided the supplementary movie. G.H. thoroughly edited and reviewed the manuscript. All authors processed seismic data, took part in discussions, and performed a full interactive review of the original and revised manuscripts. The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: The raw data used to compute the hiFSAN were obtained from different networks and data providers (24). The computed data and codes used to analyze and plot Figs. 1 to 4 are available from the companion repository: https://github.com/ThomasLecocq/2020_Science_GlobalQuieting and (40).

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Supplemental Material - abd2438_Lecocq_Table_S1.csv

Supplemental Material - abd2438_Lecocq_Table_S2.csv

Supplemental Material - abd2438_Lecocq_Table_S3.csv

Supplemental Material - abd2438s1.mp4

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