The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive effect on people’s lives and our research shows that it has even affected the Earth’s seismic noise!

Our new study on how lockdowns produced a global reduction in seismic noise, just published in @ScienceMagazine: https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abd2438

As part of my @UKRI and @NERCscience-funded COVID urgency grant, I looked at how @OpenSkyNetwork flight data corresponded to changes in seismic noise.

This graph shows flights and seismic noise (courtesy @seismo_koel) at London Gatwick airport.

In the paper we used data for Barbados, which showed a reduction in flights coinciding with a drop in seismic noise as a COVID-curfew began.

For an in-depth walk through the results of this research, take a look at @seismo_steve’s excellent thread here: https://twitter.com/seismo_steve/status/1286360433750953984

Big thanks to the authors for putting together such great work. Special thanks to @seismo_steve and @seismotom for inviting me to join.

We’re now looking to follow-up studies examining the specifics as lockdown is relaxed.

Co-author twitter list here: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1286049102078255104