Earthquakes are rarely heard as sound since seismic waves usually measure under 1Hz while human hearing ranges between 20Hz-20kHz.
Auditory Seismology, championed by Florian Dombois, director of the Institute for Transdisciplinarity at the Bern University of the Arts, transforms earthquake data into sound by a process called audification in which the time axis of a seismogram is compressed by about 2000 times and then played through a speaker. The resulting sound allows for better understanding of the data than by visual means alone.
More info + sound examples of earthquake recordings + auditory seismology:
- The Music of Sound
- Nevada Seismological Lab - The Sound of Seismic: NZ earthquakes [mp3: 1 2 3]
- U.S. Geological Survey: earthquake recordings
- The Earth Institute: underwater sound produced by the magnitude 9.3 earthquake on December 26, 2004, which caused the tsunami in SE Asia. [mp3]
- Earthquakes recorded by hydrophone
- Auditory Seismology: Time-Compression, Distance, Region, Site-Response, Tectonics
The destruction caused by Monday's Sichuan earthquake in southwest China has taken tens of thousands of lives and devasted millions of families. If you would like to help the rescue and recovery effort, Singaporean sound designer Darren Ng [Sonicbrat] is offering two free album downloads [WENCHUAN + NARGIS] with donation links to aid the people suffering in China and Burma.
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