Long Island Rail Road train cars sit empty in New York City near the Jacob Javits Center, the site of the temporary COVID-19 hospital.
These charts show how coronavirus has ‘quieted’ the world
As people stopped commuting and traveling, the Earth’s surface vibrated less—and seismologists tracked the change.
People make a lot of noise. Cars rumbling along streets, planes roaring overhead, feet slapping the sidewalk—these and other actions create countless tiny vibrations in the ground. A global network of seismometers registers those oscillations 24/7. But since world leaders have urged citizens to stay home and maintain social distancing to slow the coronavirus pandemic, the hum of daily life has quieted.
Lulls in seismic activity have occurred in the past, generally in short spurts. But COVID-19—the disease caused by the novel coronavirus—has imposed a lengthy hush in populated regions across the planet. And seismometers on multiple continents are recording the shift.
“As seismologists, we see you,” says Thomas Lecocq, a geologist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium.
An added benefit of
