Earth: Shake, Rattle and Roll- What Does an Earthquake Sound Like?

Alexandria, VA — A team of researchers may have discovered a way to hear earthquakes. Not the noises of rattling windows and crumbling buildings, but the real sounds an earthquake makes deep underground as rock grinds and fails catastrophically. Typical seismic waves have frequencies below the audible range for humans, but the August issue of EARTH shows you where to find the voice of one seismic monster: the March 11, 2011, magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake in Japan.

Beyond the novelty of simply hearing an earthquake, the team found that the new technology could possibly lead to breakthroughs in other areas of seismology. How did this group manage to capture the sounds of an earthquake, and what other applications could this technology have? Read the story here.

Read this story and more in the August issue of EARTH Magazine, available online at www.earthmagazine.org. Learn why Lake Erie has it all backward; discover if exoplanets exchange material with meteors; and find out why lahars don’t follow traditional hazard models, all in this month’s issue of EARTH.