Coronavirus Shutdowns Have Caused the Earth to Stop…

For the better part of 200 years, the world has been pretty busy. Humans have been  building, manufacturing and moving stuff with machines in every corner of the planet. (Michigan's Henry Ford and his assembly lines were there in the beginning) And all that industrial activity makes a lot of "seismic noise" - it actually makes the Earth vibrate. And now, in the span of a couple of months - a lot of that activity has been shut down by the coronavirus pandemic. Factories are closed, streets are empty. And scientists say Earth has actually stopped vibrating as much.

Seismologists analyze the movement of Earth in the form of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, nuclear explosions and sometimes objects, like meteors hitting the Earth. But always in the background is the hum of human activity. According to Newsweek, seismologists in Belgium, London, Los Angeles and Edinburgh are all reporting a drop in " average daytime background seismic noise". And they say it's dropped by about a third. They're excited because it makes it easier to monitor earthquakes and volcanoes.

I think the rest of us will probably be happy when there's a little more shaking going on.

Here's the story.

Here's some scary photos that show the global shutdown: