World's largest subwoofer: Earthquakes 'pump' ground to produce infrasound
Brian Stump and Chris Hayward, earth science professors at SMU's Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, contribute to new research showing that earthquakes produce infrasound by pumping the ground.
Earthquakes sway buildings, buckle terrain, and rumble – both audibly and in infrasound, frequencies below the threshold of human hearing. New computer modeling by a team of researchers indicates that most of the low-frequency infrasound comes from an unexpected source: the actual "pumping" of the Earth's surface. The researchers confirmed their models by studying data from an actual earthquake....
Additional members of the research team include Relu Burlacu and Kristine Pankow, University of Utah; Brian Stump and Chris Haward, Southern Methodist University; and Richard Stead and Rod Whitaker, Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-world-largest-subwoofer-earthquakes-ground.html#jCp