Several previous studies have suggested that human activities on earth are badly affecting the stability of the planet. Activities of humans that range from digging to construction contribute to a constant background hum of the planet.
Now, a new study has suggested that the earth is witnessing a dramatic reduction in that anthropogenic seismic noise in recorded history, and all credit goes to the coronavirus outbreak that is creating chaos in all nooks of the world.
Earth is silent due to coronavirus outbreak
Researchers who took part in this study revealed that human-caused seismic noise has reduced drastically over the past couple of months, and this could be for the first time that the planet is maintaining such silence in its humming due to human activities.
"This quiet period is likely the longest and largest dampening of human-caused seismic noise since we started monitoring the Earth in detail using vast monitoring networks of seismometers. Our study uniquely highlights just how much human activities impact the solid Earth, and could let us see more clearly than ever what differentiates human and natural noise," said Stephen Hicks, a researcher at the Imperial College of London, in a recent statement.
According to the researchers, the earth has never been so silent for so many days. Earlier, the humming of the earth used to go down during weekends and nights, as well as on holidays like Christmas and New Year. The new study also added that the humming of the earth has dropped by 50 percent post the coronavirus outbreak.
"With increasing urbanization and growing global populations, more people will be living in geologically hazardous areas. It will, therefore, become more important than ever to differentiate between natural and human-caused noise so that we can 'listen in' and better monitor the ground movements beneath our feet. This study could help to kick-start this new field of study," said Thomas Lecocq, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, and the lead author of the study.
Coronavirus: Latest statistics
Even though the coronavirus outbreak has silenced the humming of the earth, the pandemic is literally creating chaos in all nooks of the world, as thousands of people are losing their lives every day.
According to the latest statistics, this deadly pandemic has already claimed the lives of more than 6,36,000 people worldwide, and the number of positive cases has crossed 15 million.
