The Earth is less prone to geological vibration thanks to ... Covid-19

The whole world suspends economic production to fight epidemics. Industrial machinery and transportation did not work, so the tremors were reduced by up to 1/3. This makes studying volcanic and earthquake activity easier.

Geological vibrations come from "cultural noise" - a combination of all kinds of noise generated from daily life and production activities of people. These include sounds from industrial production, transportation, music and the voices of billions of people around the planet.

The Earth has been quieter since Covid-19 appeared - (Image: NASA).

Earth's persistent geological vibrations are one of the major obstacles in studying volcanic and earthquake activity. But since the arrival of Covid-19 from the end of December 2019, the vibration has dropped by one third, according to NewsWeek.

The reason is that the countries in the world have implemented measures to blockade, isolate and suspend production and business activities. People no longer go to the street, vehicles do not work, industrial machinery also stops making the Earth as "quieter" , no more noisy.

Besides reducing the noise, the air also becomes cleaner. A recent study by Columbia University (USA) found that reducing vehicles on the road and industrial production can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 50% compared to 2019.

Thomas Lecocq, a seismic researcher at the Royal Belgian Observatory in Brussels, says the sharp drop in vibrations makes Belgium truly quiet. The same thing was measured in England, USA.

In studying Earth geology in particular, reducing noise is a useful thing. Because, normally when measuring vibration, scientists take a lot of time to study, decompose what is vibration from the earth and what is vibration from the Earth's surface caused by humans. Confusion between the two types of vibration easily leads to false judgments.

But now, looking in the positive direction, this research activity is made easier.