30
September 2004
They're playing our tune
The existence of continuous background free oscillations of the Earth — in the absence of earthquakes — was discovered five years ago. The Earth 'hums'. It has been suggested, but not verified, that the atmosphere provokes these oscillations. Rhie and Romanowicz used seismometer arrays located in California, Japan and Europe to test this idea. They find that the excitation that causes the hum can be isolated to regions in each hemisphere associated with high winter storm activity. The hum is therefore generated by a process involving coupling of the atmosphere, ocean and seafloor.
Excitation of Earth's continuous free oscillations
by atmosphere-ocean-seafloor coupling
JUNKEE RHIE & BARBARA ROMANOWICZ
Nature 431, 552–556 (2004); doi:10.1038/nature02942
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