Raspberry Shake features prominently in a new report in Science showing that lockdown measures meant to slow the spread of the virus COVID-19 contributed to a 50% anthropogenic noise reduction in global seismic signals.
This report features a huge contribution made by citizen seismologists using Raspberry Shakes, several of whom are co-authors that helped gather data and contribute code. Another great example of the ways citizen and educational seismology can contribute to the scientific record. Congratulations, Shake Community members! Much of this groundbreaking article was made possible thanks to you!
There have already been so many articles published by major news outlets showcasing this work. We are keeping track of them here.
Truly an epic day for Citizen Seismology and Citizen Science.
Some quotes from the paper:
“Seismometers in urban environments are important to maximize the spatial coverage of seismic networks and to warn of local geologic hazards …”
“Recordings of human-generated seismic vibrations that travel through the solid Earth provide insights into the dynamics of pandemic lockdowns.”
“Citizen seismometers provide a different urban ground motion dataset, with denser coverage in some places.”
“The length and quiescence of this period represents the longest and most coherent global seismic noise reduction in recorded history, highlighting how human activities impact the solid Earth.”
“With denser networks and more citizen sensors in urban environments, more features of the seismic noise, rather than just amplitude, will become usable and will help to identify different anthropogenic noise sources”
From the acknowledgements section, "We also kindly acknowledge all the passionate community seismologists for running their ‘home’ seismometers and participating, indirectly, to a better understanding of the Earth."