Shhhh…The Earth May be Trying to Tell us Something
Monday, April 28th, 2008By Bill Mitchell, Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Nuvera Fuel Cells
It all started out innocently enough; an email from a friend who wanted to get a few entrepreneurs in the cleantech market space together for a little dinner, a couple of beers, and end the evening off by a trip to “a very cool scientific art studio”.
Dinner was good and the beer better, but things really got interesting once we got to the studio. As it turns out, the “very cool scientific art studio” was the creation of a scientist turned artist by the name of John Bullitt. He graduated in 1980 with a degree in physics from Grinnell College, where he built the college’s first seismograph. After receiving an MA in geophysics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, he joined the research staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he continued postgraduate studies in geophysics and conducted basic and applied research into the nature of seismic wave propagation in the Earth’s interior.
Using his scientific background, John aggregated seismic data collected from listening posts around world and over many decades. He then synchronized the data, speeds it up and plays these now-audible “Earth Sounds” on a 3 dimensional sound stage, which he calls the Deep Earth Dome. The seating area is surrounded by speakers, placing the audience at a simulated center of the earth. It is a truly unique experience – combining earth science with art.
Click here for a Boston Globe article on Bullitt’s work, and here for a sample of what the earth dome sounds like (only in stereo, so you will not get the spatial sensation of sitting in the center of the earth). In the recording, time has been compressed 10,000-fold; the entire 3-minute recording spans 3 weeks of real Earth time. You will hear earthquakes that now sound metallic and hollow, which is an effect of the waves bouncing around the inside of the planet. In other recordings, you could clearly hear ocean storms (which sounded like white noise) moving around the earth.
After we got over the initial shock and awe of what we were listening to, we started to have a discussion with John to understand how long these recordings have been taking place, and whether or not anyone has tried to use them as a way to “visualize” the effect of global warming on the increase of seismic activity or on the number and intensity of ocean storms. Although there has been no effort on this to date, John admitted it might be interesting to look into.
As the discussion and listening continued thorough the evening, I was struck by the sense of how alive the planet is, and that we are affecting it thought our pollution. If you listen carefully in John’s recordings, you can hear the sounds of the tides moving - it sounds like the earth breathing. Hopefully, we can keep the environment and the earth healthy so that it continues to breathe for many future generations to come.
