CaltechAUTHORS
Published September 11, 2020 | Version Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

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

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Royal Observatory of Belgium
  • 2. ROR icon Imperial College London
  • 3. ROR icon University of Auckland
  • 4. ROR icon Royal Holloway University of London
  • 5. ROR icon National Autonomous University of Mexico
  • 6. ROR icon ETH Zurich
  • 7. ROR icon University of Helsinki
  • 8. ROR icon United States Geological Survey
  • 9. ROR icon University of Costa Rica
  • 10. ROR icon Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
  • 11. ROR icon Boğaziçi University
  • 12. ROR icon Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
  • 13. ROR icon University of Catania
  • 14. ROR icon National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology
  • 15. ROR icon University of Cologne
  • 16. ROR icon Institut des Sciences de la Terre
  • 17. ROR icon Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica
  • 18. ROR icon University of Aberdeen
  • 19. ROR icon Dublin Institute For Advanced Studies
  • 20. ROR icon Delft University of Technology
  • 21. ROR icon Spanish National Research Council
  • 22. ROR icon Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources
  • 23. ROR icon National Observatory of Athens
  • 24. ROR icon Observatorio San Calixto
  • 25. ROR icon Hellenic Mediterranean University
  • 26. ROR icon Norwegian Geotechnical Institute
  • 27. ROR icon University of Alaska Fairbanks
  • 28. ROR icon Institutul National de Cercetare si Dezvoltare pentru Fizica Pamantului
  • 29. ROR icon University of Strasbourg
  • 30. ROR icon University of Lausanne
  • 31. ROR icon University of Bristol
  • 32. ROR icon Instituto Geofísico del Perú
  • 33. ROR icon Princeton University
  • 34. ROR icon University of Tehran
  • 35. ROR icon Boston College
  • 36. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 37. ROR icon Stanford University
  • 38. ROR icon Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
  • 39. ROR icon University of British Columbia
  • 40. ROR icon Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
  • 41. ROR icon Australian National University
  • 42. ROR icon McGill University
  • 43. ROR icon Agriculture and Agriculture-Food Canada
  • 44. ROR icon University of Maine
  • 45. ROR icon University of California, Riverside
  • 46. ROR icon University of Chile
  • 47. ROR icon European Center for Geodynamics and Seismology
  • 48. ROR icon University of Oxford
  • 49. ROR icon Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
  • 50. ROR icon Victoria University of Wellington
  • 51. ROR icon University of Patras
  • 52. ROR icon University of Bergen
  • 53. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 54. ROR icon Institut d'Estudis Catalans
  • 55. ROR icon University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
  • 56. ROR icon University of California, Santa Barbara

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).

Attached Files

Supplemental Material - abd2438_Lecocq_SM.pdf

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

Files

abd2438_Lecocq_SM.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
104578
DOI
10.1126/science.abd2438
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20200727-071931607

Related works

Describes
10.1126/science.abd2438 (DOI)
https://github.com/ThomasLecocq/2020_Science_GlobalQuieting (URL)

Funding

Royal Society
URF\R1\180377
GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ)
S08-60 321.50 ALL 03/19
Federal Foreign Office (Germany)
Boğaziçi University
BAP 15683
Human Frontier Science Program
RGY0072/2017
HELPOS Project
MIS 5002697
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
864.14.005
Observatorio San Calixto
Air Force Technical Application Center (AFTAC)
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
DGE‐1745301
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT)
299766
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo
2020-21200903
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
NE/R013144/1
K. H. Renlund Foundation
New Zealand Earthquake Commission
20796
University of California, Santa Barbara
AuScope
Commonwealth of Australia
Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO)
SR/00/305
Luxembourg National Research Fund

Dates

Created
2020-07-27
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Seismological Laboratory , COVID-19