It seems incredible that the Earth can talk. Voice in 60 registers she constantly makes sounds, but to hear the eleventh octave impossible, sounds too low to detect people.


Photo: Nasa/GettyImages

To hear the voice of the Earth, do not need a building towers and telescopes. Scientists listen to the voice of the planet: in tunnels mine near of Schiltach in the black forest, as they are at great depths, where the wind does not interfere with measurements, highly sensitive sensors was received smooth rumble. The researchers also registered similar sounds in Finland, the sounds of the planet for the first time reveal the secrets of the depths.

Some scientists were able to determine the melody of the planet. The oceans can speak a deep bass voice: wind raises the strong waves of the tsunami, but much weaker sea swinging down deep to the bottom, this massage. Land on it responds very deep bass voice.

Winter storms strengthen this buzz that arises from very weak, in a few thousandths of a millimeter, movements, repeating every few minutes. This tiny movement has energy, although the whole planet moves, it generates only 500 watts, which is equivalent to the capacity of five light bulbs. Sound waves oscillate very slowly, at a rate of from three to seven millihertz.

Now scientists have managed not only to record the sounds of the Earth, but also to identify their origin. The first time they were able to use the waves, which penetrate deep into the earth.

Still geologists had to rely on a sporadic waves of strong earthquakes for studying the structure of the earth's interior. Now, as reported by Piero Poly from the University of Grenoble, his team with the help of regular pulsations of the Earth, which is reproduced as buzz, can explore two different layers at great depths.

At a depth of 410 km achieved light rocks of the upper mantle and the beginning of the transition zone, which contains many minerals that they have a greater density. At a depth of 660 km achieved a heavy layer of the lower mantle. Both the boundary layer was detected due to the ripple of the waves of the Earth, according to Piero Poly and his colleagues in the journal Science.

For experts it is also impressed: "My colleagues were the first, who was fascinated by the search for these tiny signals," says Rudolf Widmer-Snider from the University of Stuttgart. "This work is an innovative trend", said Christophe Sans-Senefelder of Potsdam. Continuous noise of the Earth will now be a "key" in order to learn the deep structure, says German Prieto from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia.

But not all the sounds of the Earth were transcribed. Rudolf Widmer-Snider and his colleagues in the black forest recorded sounds, which cannot come from the waves of the oceans. The land varies, respectively, not only up and down, but does the hard way there and back - ball, the upper half turns to the left, and bottom first to the right, and then in each backward swing Vice versa.

These fluctuations can't happen as massage earth's crust from the top down. They are forces, which are directed horizontally, i.e. the Earth is stretched. What creates this phenomenon? There were different assumptions, but until now, scientists have not found an explanation.