Ahmedabad: When the hubbub of human life is silenced by locking, Gujarat geologist can measure the seismic sound of the earth that falls into a calm hum – the planet enjoys the “calm moment” alone.
Geologists from the Institute of Seismic Research in Gandhinagar measured the Whir Bumi between March 25 and May 7, 2020, when Covid has closed everyday life.
Geologists trace sounds with seismometers planted deep in the earth in 12 locations.
ISR recorded 79% to 87% decreased seismic noise levels around Morbi ceramic factories and fell 27% to 79% in urban areas.
There was a decrease in 29% up to 35% noise levels in the population zone of rural areas and 7% to 18% slid at the seismic station located in the state.
ISR and the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, recorded a total decline of 1 to 19 decibels in noise levels throughout the state.
This reduction was recorded mainly at Kutch, Saurashtra, South Gujarat, and the land of the mainland.
This measurement is made possible by drastic restrictions on human bustle sources such as factories, transportation, machinery, mining explosions, and construction.
These factors are usually responsible for high frequency vibrations that contribute to the background buzz or noise in the earth.
“We have considered the values of background noise related to the median human activity in a frequency range of 5-15 Hertz to describe changes to anthropogenic seismic noise level during the locking period at 12 stations in Gujarat,” said the research paper.
‘Anthropogenic’ means it comes from human activities.
This paper was published in the April ‘nature’ edition and was written by ISR Ketan Roy, Jyoti Sharma, and Santosh Kumar.
M Ravi Kumar is a writer from Ngri.
Lockdown soften the earth’s whirs to whisper
