The soundtrack of our unquiet Earth

I’ve coming down off an intense few weeks’ of travelling: first to this years’ ScienceOnline conference (some thoughts about which might appear here soon), then to a conference on Hawaii’s Big Island (which I’ll definitely be writing about), and then a brief detour into Ohio. I almost feel like I’ve seen more of O’Hare airport in the last month than I have of my flat, which as anyone who has spent time in O’Hare will tell you, is not a good thing.

Anyway, as I warm up my blogging muscles, I thought I’d quickly share an excellent video brought to my attention on Twitter by fellow All-geo blogger John Stevenson, which rather cleverly visually – and aurally – sums up global earthquake activity in 2011. Given the nature of seismic waves, I think that adding sound is a really nice touch; you might, like me, think there’s a possessed typewriter somewhere in your home, but it really brings home that earthquakes really do happen all the time, even if only the really big and/or unfortunately located ones make the news.

Speaking of really big earthquakes, just wait until the Tohuku earthquake hits at 1:50. It’s hard to miss, and the energy released – and the aftershocks thus triggered – by this magnitude 9.0 event clearly alters the pace and rhythm of the Earth’s tectonic song for all the months that follow.