Seismologists Find The World Quieted Down During Pandemic Lockdowns
来源：科学美国人
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学，我是克里斯托弗.因塔利亚塔。
Humans are a really noisy species.
人类是一个非常吵闹的物种。
Hammering and digging, flying and driving, delivering heavy cargo all over the world.
捶捶打打、敲敲挖挖、飞行、开车、运送沉重的货物，世界各地都在发生着。
And that activity creates seismic noise, which masks delicate signals from faraway small earthquakes.
这些活动会产生震动的噪声，这让地下远处的微小地震信号不容易被捕捉。
Raphael De Plaen, a seismologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, compares listening for small earthquakes during normal times to sitting at a wedding, at a table far away from the band.
Raphael De Plaen是来自墨西哥国立自治大学的地震学家。他把平时听到的小地震，比作参加婚礼时你所坐的餐桌远离乐队。
You can't really make out the music, because there are so many people laughing and talking in between you and the loudspeakers.
其实你听不清音乐，因为你和音响间还有那么多人们在说笑。
"And so now the lockdown is like coming during the rehearsal — no one is talking.
“现如今，封城时期的情况就如同婚礼彩排时——没人在现场讲话。
So even though you're far away, the speakers are loud enough for you to listen to all the songs and clearly identify them."
所以，即便你坐的很远，可扬声器足够响的话，你还是可以清楚听到所有的歌，并清晰地识别出。”
De Plaen says he and his colleagues have been able to detect "songs" — in this case, seismic signals — they didn't even know existed.
De Plaen说他的同事已经能够检测到这些“歌声”——这儿我们指的是地震信号——它们以前甚至都不知道这些信号的存在。
And now that they've identified those signals they'll be able to look back at decades of data and use these newly discovered seismic fingerprints to better identify small earthquakes like this in the past.
它们已经识别到这些信号，并结合过去几十年的数据，使用这些新发现的地震信号，像过去那样更好地检测小的地震。
The study, co-authored by more than 70 seismologists from around the world, appears in the journal Science.
这一研究共有70余位地震学家参与，发布在《自然科学》杂志上。
In addition to unmasking new seismic phenomena, the study also demonstrates how seismic data could be used to track human activity and movement — like traffic in a certain region, for example.
为了识别出新的地震现象，研究还说明了地震数据如何用来追踪人类活动迁徙——例如像某个区域的交通情况。
And all without the privacy concerns that go along with cell phone tracking.
所有的这些都不会出现由于手机追踪存在的个人隐私问题。
"By definition what we are observing is already anonymous — there's no way to actually know if John Doe has left his home to spend the night in another place."
“根据定义，我们的观测都已经匿名——实际上根本无法知道，例如某人离开家去别的地方过夜。”
De Plaen points out that this finding may be one of the only positive things to come out of the global pandemic — the ability to better detect future earthquakes.
De Plaen指出，这一发现也许是在全球疫情中唯一一件好事——能更好地检测未来的地震。