Live on KCSB Radio, Santa Barbara 12 Aug 2016

Excerpt from seismic sonification/audification performance incorporating live-coded processing and sequencing of audified seismic data from various 2016 earthquakes. Also incorporates samples from Chris Hayward's earlier work, "Listening to the Earth Sing."

A similar live performance was given July 17th, 2016 at NITRO performance space, Sydney, NSW, accompanied by an audio-reactive LED chandelier

References:
http://i-e-i.wikispaces.com/Auditory+Display
http://gibber.cc
https://cycling74.com/products/max/
http://www.lifeorange.com
http://allshookup.org/seismic.htm

MAGNITUDE Live Seismic Noise Performance by Life Orange - Ryan McGee

This Christchurch Earthquake composition is created by Ryan McGee (www.lifeorange.com) in collaboration with D.V. Rogers and uses a single seismic recording from the closest station from seismic waveform data made public via IRIS Wilbur 
http://www.iris.edu/cgi-bin/wilberII/wilberII_page3.pl?evname=20110221_235142.3.farm&qtrxyrad=Q1_2011///all

The piece begins with a build-up of several reversed recordings of the event time stretched and audified at different speeds and rates.  We then hear the strong impact from the raw audification followed immediately by a chaotic granulated version emphasizing the loudest points in the impact. We hear a tone fade in that is an extremely time-streched and pitch shifted version of the event with all but the most dominant partials filtered out of the sound.  In a way, this is the tone of the event
itself.  Other versions of this tone will eventually overlap at different pitch intervals.

The chaotic granulation gives way to the event played back at several different time-strech factors and synchronous granulations. Timing becomes more and more ordered and apparent until we hear very clear rhythmic granulations and tones leading to a final build-up and ending with a raw audification.

ref: https://is.gd/z3rSeq

Christchurch Earthquake Mw6.3 21st Feb *02011 - Ryan McGee

This Haiti Earthquake composition is created by Ryan McGee in collaboration with D.V. Rogers using seismic recordings of the 12th January, 2010 Mw7.0 Haiti event based of waveform data recordings from the closest 12 stations. The data used in making this composition was collected from IRIS Wilbur.

The piece begins with the granulated impacts from each station played in sucession from the furthest to closest station from the quake.  We also hear a brief recording of noise from each station during the granulations. Since each station has its own distinct sound, these noises act as signatures for each station as we move closer to the quake. A slow
melody plays in the background with a tone for each station- generated by filtering out all but the most prominent frequency from the spectra of each noise signature.  

We also hear a rhythmic sound generated from the impact of each station played back at high-speed in succession again from farthest to nearest.  As this rhythm gradually increases in intensity we start to hear a lower noise grow in the background, which is a time stretched recording of the impact played in reverse to further emphasize the backwards build-up of the piece.

At the climax we hear the impact from the closest station followed by the impacts from the other stations- this time increasing in distance. In the background we hear the low growl of the time-stretched recording fade away. The granulated sounds are chaotic after the main event, for they now emphasize and repeat fluctuations in the recordings rather than grains of equal size.

ref: https://is.gd/z3rSeq

Haiti Earthquake Mw7.0 12th January *02010 - Ryan McGee

PIEQF Shake Table Machine Translations by Geo Homsy
15th November 02008 - Live Field Recording
Parkfield, California, USA
ref: http://pieqf.allshookup.org/?p=454


PIEQF Machine Translations - Geo Homsy

Shadow Zone Shadows (SZS) was performed inside Allosphere on the the 5th June *02012 - a seismic sound performance collaboration between Ryan McGee and D.V. Rogers.

Using audio spatialization software developed by Ryan McGee the SZS performance spatially mapped to 10 chanels of sound (+ 1 Sub Woofer) the principal of the seismic shadow zone. SZS conceptually performed  how seismic waves radiate spherically from the earthquake's hypocenter, but are not detected by seismometers between 104 degrees and 140 degrees from the focus of the earthquake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_zone

SZS Performance scipted in custom C++ by Ryan McGee. Performance sequence as follows;

1. Walk In Allopshere CHCH M6.1 X138 (Breathing - Ostes)

2. All Events @ X2205  x 2 with 31ET Markers Only (1/2sec) NO Sub 65HZ Sub!

3. X138 Breathing 30 Seconds

4. All Events with 65hz Sub + 31ET Markers X276,  X1103,  X551

5. 31ET Markers Only with Sub 65 HZ from Co-Ordinate Points.

6. CHCH 61 X138 Sub - Infinate Finish

31 Equal Temprament Markers are the note E3 Octave (42Hz). Info about 31ET here >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_equal_temperament

The SZS sound performance used miniSEED data collected via IRIS the vertical component (Z) of seismometers collected from 31 seismic events (M9.1 to M5.5) recorded this 21st Century only. What is miniSEED data? - http://www.iris.edu/data/miniseed.htm

More info about this research can be found at; http://i-e-i.wikispaces.com and http://sos.allshookup.org

This performance was fund by the Australia Council for the Arts Music Board and Inter Arts Fund - http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au

The data from 31 sets of seismic events used for SZS were as follows;

M9.1 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Date: Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:53 UTC
Location: 3.316°N, 95.854°E

M9.0 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Date: Friday, March 11, 2011 at 05:46:24 UTC
Location: 38.297°N, 142.372°E

NO Magnitude 8.9

M8.8 - OFFSHORE BIO-BIO, CHILE
Date: Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 06:34:14 UTC
Location: 35.909°S, 72.733°W

M8.7 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Date: Wednesday 11th April, 2012 at 08:38:36 UTC
Location: 2.311°N, 93.063°E

M8.6 - NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
Date: Monday, March 28, 2005 at 16:09:36 UTC
Location: 2.074°N, 97.013°E

M8.5 - SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 11:10:26 UTC
Location: 	4.520°S, 101.374°E

M8.4 - NEAR COAST OF PERU
Date: 2001 June 23 20:33:14 UTC
Location: 16.26°S 73.64°W 16.26S 73.64W

M8.3 - HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
Date: Thursday, September 25, 2003 at 19:50:06 (UTC)
Location: 41.775°N, 143.904°E

M8.1 - SAMOA ISLANDS REGION
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 17:48:10 UTC
Location: 15.509°S, 172.034°W

M8.0 - NEAR THE COAST OF CENTRAL PERU
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 23:40:57 UTC
Location: 13.354°S, 76.509°W

M7.9 - EASTERN SICHUAN, CHINA
Date: Monday, May 12, 2008 at 06:28:01 UTC
Location: 30.986°N, 103.364°E

M7.8 - OFF WEST COAST OF THE SOUTH ISLAND, N.Z.
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 09:22:29 UTC
Location: 45.750°S, 166.577°E

M7.7 - SEA OF OKHOTSK
Date: Saturday, July 05, 2008 at 02:12:04 UTC
Location: 53.888°N, 152.869°E

M7.6 - MORO GULF, MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
Date: Friday, July 23, 2010 at 22:51:12 UTC
Location: 6.470°N, 123.532°E

M7.5 - ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
Date: Monday, August 10, 2009 at 19:55:39 UTC
Location: 14.013°N, 92.923°E

M7.4 - MARTINIQUE REGION, WINDWARD ISLANDS
Date: Thursday, November 29, 2007 at 19:00:19 UTC
Location: 14.943°N, 61.244°W

NO Magnitude 7.3

M7.2 - BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
Date: Sunday, April 04, 2010 at 22:40:42 UTC
Location: 32.259°N, 115.287°W

M7.1 - MACQUARIE ISLAND REGION
Date: Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 00:30:11 UTC
Location: 55.681°S, 158.527°E

M7.0 - HAITI REGION
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 21:53:10 UTC
Location: 18.443°N, 72.571°W

M6.9 - GULF OF CALIFORNIA
Date: Monday, August 03, 2009 at 17:59:56 UTC
Location: 29.066°N, 112.871°W

M6.8 - SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
Date: Saturday, February 23, 2008 at 15:57:20 UTC
Location: 57.072°S, 23.398°W

M6.7 - OFF THE COAST OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Date: Friday, June 17, 2005 at 06:21:41 UTC
Location: 40.758°N, 126.595°W

M6.6 - NORTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
Date: Thursday, December 20, 2007 at 07:55:19 UTC
Location: 38.842°S, 177.930°E

M6.5 - OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
Date: Friday, November 13, 2009 at 03:05:57 UTC
Location: 19.385°S, 70.266°W

M6.4 - KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
Date: Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 14:11:49 UTC
Location: 30.090°S, 177.999°W

M6.3 - OFFSHORE CARABOBO, VENEZUELA
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 20:06:24 UTC
Location: 10.720°N, 67.951°W

M6.2 - TAIWAN REGION
Date: Thursday, September 06, 2007 at 17:51:26 UTC
Location: 24.313°N, 122.255°E

M6.1 - SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND
Date: Monday, February 21, 2011 at 23:51:42 UTC
Location: 43.583°S, 172.680°E

M6.0 - PARKFIELD, CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 at 17:15:24 UTC
Location: 35.815°N, 120.374°W

M5.8 - VIRGINIA, USA
Date: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 17:51:04 UTC
Location: 37.936°N, 77.933°W

M5.5 - GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA, CALIFORNIA
Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 18:42:15 UTC
Location: 33.953°N, 117.761°W

Shadow Zone Shadows (SZS) - Ryan McGee and D.V. Rogers

The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) is a deep borehole which has been drilled into the San Andreas Fault near the township of Parkfield in Central California. The SAFOD main hole was drilled to a depth of 3.4 km in 2004 and 2005, crossing the San Andreas near a region of the fault where repeating Magnitude 2.0 earthquakes are generated.

Ref: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/parkfield/safod_pbo.php

A goal of the SAFOD project is to record data near the source of earthquakes leading to a better understanding of the processes that control the behavior of the San Andreas fault. It is hoped that the development of instrumentation and analytic methods will help evaluate the possibility of earthquake prediction.

A three component seismometer is currently operational at a depth of 2 miles (3.21km) below the surface of the earth. The deepest publicly funded National Science Foundation (USA) seismic recording device on the planet. This audification was an experiment in HowTo convert data collected from the vertical component of this seismometer which generates Telemetry MiniSEED data which is sent to the Berkeley Seismological Lab which manages data collected from this sensor. The Telemetry MiniSEED was converted it to standard miniSEED data creating this audio file. 

The data is free and publicly available from the following URL;
http://www.ncedc.org/dart/SF/MH025.SF/

This audification was generated by Ryan McGee and it is planned to develop a continous audio stream as auditory display of the GP3 component of this SAFOD seismometer. The general public and geophysicists can listen to near-realtime data being broadcasted from one of the deepest seismometers located on the planet.

Research for this work was funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, Music Board and Inter-Arts fund towards the development of Inner Earth Interpreter (IEI) and Sounds of Seismic (SOS)

http://i-e-i.wikispaces.com
http://sos.allshookup.org

San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth - GP3 Auditory Display

This seismic electronica composition by Ryan McGee is transposed from data collected from the July 4th and 5th, 2019, Ridgecrest earthquake sequences. The Mw6.4 earthquake was focused at a depth 10.7km beneath the China Lake Naval Air Center and occurred at 10:33am local time and was felt in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. This strike slip event was a foreshock to the later Mw7.1 event which occurred thirty four hours later at 8.19pm local time on the July 5th, 2019.

REF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ridgecrest_earthquakes

This example of seismic electronica explores timbral variety within the tenets of audification: using only granular time-stretching, re-pitching, resampling, and filtering. The goal is to focus on the sonic qualities present in seismic data without parameter mapping to control arbitrary sound generators. Repeating identical audification paradigms while varying the source of the data (i.e. the seismic station) explores timbral differences between propagation to various seismometers at surrounding geographic locations. 

Subtle modulations and time/frequency intervals are used to musify this collage of seismic waveforms, but the emphasis is on sound timbre over musical composition. All sounds generated in MATLAB from IRIS Wilber data and sequenced in Ableton Live. 

**For recommended listening use Headphones..

©© ryan@lifeorange.com *02019

REFERENCES:

MUSIFICATION OF SEISMIC DATA
http://www.icad.org/icad2016/proceedings2/posters/ICAD2016_paper_21.pdf

M6.4 USGS Event Page 
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci38443183

M6.4 IRIS Data Sources
https://ds.iris.edu/wilber3/find_stations/11056847

M6.4 USGS Twitter Thread 
https://twitter.com/USGS/status/1146885879446888450

M7.1 USGS Event Page 
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci38457511

M7.1 IRIS Data Sources
http://ds.iris.edu/wilber3/find_stations/11058875

M7.1 USGS Twitter Thread
https://twitter.com/USGS/status/1147499382759206912

Ridgecrest Earthquakes, Mw6.4 - Mw7.1, CA, USA, July 4th - 6th *02019 - Ryan McGee

# 79 Listening to the Earth Sing by Chris Hayward
Southern Methodist University, Dpt of Geology, Dallas TX

Presented at ICAD 1992

Published in:
Auditory Display, Audification, and Auditory Interfaces by Gregory Kramer. 1994
pages 369-405

NOTES:

Unlike many other kinds of data, seismograms may be successfully audited with a minimum of processing. The technique works so well because both sound and air and seismic waves in rock follow the same basic physics, that described by the Elastic Wave Equation.

Problems in edifying seismograms arise when the subsonic wide dynamic range signals must be rescaled to the audio without introducing distracting artefacts.

The use of audio for seismic quality control, analysis, and interpretation will develop only when audio displays become integrated into the daily tools of seismologists.

1. INTRODUCTION
Seismic data… is an almost perfect case for audification. Seismic data sets are large - seldom less than a few thousand samples and as much as several billion samples. A simple audification will play from several seconds to more than an hour. It will sound like a recording of natural environmental sounds because sounds transmitted through air (acoustic waves) have similar physics to seismic vibrations transmitted through the earth (elastic waves).

2. BACKGROUND
2.1 Comparison of Sound with Seismic Waves

Most seismic interpretation assumes that the recorded seismograms are elastic waves (1) and, therefore, follow the wave equation (2):

WAVE EQUATION (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_equation)

This same equation describes the transmission of sound through air. For sound in air c is about 1,100 feet/second. In rock, there are several different kinds of waves that propagate out from the source at different velocities. The fastest compression-rarefractions, or P-waves, travel at 5,000 feet/second in rocks near the surface, and over 40,000 feet/second deep in the earth's mantle. Slower shear wave distortions or S-waves travel at about half the P-wave speed. For sensors and sources near the earth's surface, there are also Rayleigh and Love surface waves that travel at lower speeds.

Seismic waves have dominant frequencies of 40Hz, much lower than audible sound.

(1) This is not true in special cases very near the source where the explosion, impact, or earthquake permanently deform or fracture the rock.
(2) For a more general discussion to the elastic equations of motion as used in seismology see Aki and Richards
[Aki, K., and P.G. Richards. Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods. W.H. Freeman, 1980]

2.2 THE GOALS OF SEISMOLOGY

EXPLORATION SEISMOLOGY. Exploration seismology uses a controlled source such as a hammer or small explosive charge, and records reflections and refractions from the rock layers a few feet to several miles below the surface. (Signals recorded for exploration seismology are short and have a limited dynamic range and bandwidth compared to most sounds. They are more like a recording of a hand clap or gunshot made in a canyon… the source impulse is short and the interesting portion of the recording is the echo.)

PLANETARY SEISMOLOGY. Planetary seismology uses recordings of volcanic eruptions, large explosions, and earthquakes. (Signals recorded for planetary seismology are continuous)

4.3 FREE OSCILLATION DATA
One interesting application of audio data is for free oscillation data. The earth rings when struck, like any solid object such as a bell. The characteristics of the oscillations depend on where and how the earthquake occurred, the material properties of the surrounding rock, and the location of the seismic recorder. It is not yet clear what could be illustrated in an audio display but, in view of the analogs to bell like objects, the possibilities are intriguing.

4.4 DATA DISCOVERY
Data discovery includes the processes of examining seismic waveforms for information of interest and forming the initial hypothesis about the causes of the disturbances. Such hypothesis will be tested and explored further with additional specialised processing and displays. This initial look forms the jumping-off point for imaginative new observations and ideas. By enriching the current displays with audio in a simple direct manner with few processing biases, there is less possibility that interesting information will be overlooked.

…Auditory displays summarise the information in a different manner than common plots, allowing a second chance to recognise relationships in the seismic data.

4.7 EDUCATION
Education is potentially a very rewarding application. The explanation of how seismic energy travels through the earth can be enhanced with examples and explanations that draw on everyday listening experience, such as echoes or the sounds that objects make when hit. The intuitive grasp of physical acoustics that we accumulate in our life can be carried over to certain aspects of seismology.

4.8. MODEL WATCHING
Much of seismology is devoted to determining reasonable earth structures. Once an initial hypothesis is formed, numerical models are developed to test and further improve the hypothesis. Various methods of 'fitting' data to models are available, but it is often appropriate to build a guided model based on interactive input. The model is iterated and displayed versus the real data while the user makes certain adjustments to model parameters. Model and real data may be summarised with a goodness of fit, but may also be displayed overlaid. It is natural in such a case to also display the audification in side-by-side comparisons.

5. PROBLEMS IN AUDIFYING SEISMOGRAMS
Ideally, processing techniques should preserve the physics of the input data while making all interesting features audible. This is required if the final display is to take advantage of our native ability and experience in interpreting natural sound. To be audible the sound must fit within human frequency and amplitudes limits for comfortable listening.

* The information is nearly subsonic
Some recorded data includes audio frequencies, but the dominant energy for most reflections is centred near 30 Hz where it is difficult to distinguish small changes in pitch and timbre.

* The bandwidth is narrow compared to natural sounds.
Seismologists go to great lengths to record broadband signals. Good definition over three octaves is considered excellent. This is far short of the ten-octave range of natural sounds.

* Both the direct wave and reflected signals are short compared to natural speech and most environmental sounds. Most reflection recording is less than 3 seconds with much of the interest in the first second or two.

* Classical seismic interpretation (where each waveform peak is interpreted) is nearly impossible in a straight edification. In reflection seismic interpretation, coherent peaks on adjacent traces are interpreted as reflections of a rock layer. The times of these peaks and the interval to the next set of peaks are careful measured and mapped. This measurement of each wiggle may be more amenable to signification or visual display.

* The dynamic range of some signals is extremely large (>100dB) over a relatively short period. This problem has to be handled by graphical dispelys too. One method used for plots is to clip waveforms when they exceed a particular amplitude.

* The signals are nearly all far infrasonic. Typical teleseisms (distant signals) have their dominant energy below 1 Hz and only the closest earthquakes and blasts have energy above 10Hz.

* Earthquake signals span more than 17 octaves. This presents problems not only for auditory displays, but for almost any other form of raw data display. Researchers have found it difficult to record or deal with displays that include more than a few octaves of signal.

* The dataset size can be huge. Because stations record continuously for years, the dataset size grows. If instrumentation has not changed, selected waveforms from many years of recording may be appropriate to a particular interpretation problem. Indexing, retrieving, and displaying these selected segments is a problem in itself.

* The dynamic range of interesting earthquake signals is large.
Today, 24-bit recording systems with a dynamic range > 140 dB are common. Fortunately, in many cases 16 bits will adequately represent the waveform.

6. PROCESSING TECHNIQUES

6.1 PREPROCESSING
Preprocessing consists of adapting the raw seismic field data into a form that can be output to an audio interface. Most dat requires a simple amplitude rescaling and DC removal to adjust the range of the recorded data to the range of the output D-to-A converters. Usually high-quality interpolation is also needed to produce an acceptable sample rate without distorting the input waveform.

DC bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_bias (mean value of the waveform)

Interpolation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpolation

6.2 TIME-COMPRESSION
Some shallow exploration reflection data has enough high frequency to be audible if played at recorded speed. Most earthquake records are not directly audible since the significant energy is all below 10 Hz. To be heard the seismograms must be processed to move the dominant energy into the audible bands. This process must preserve any of the relations to acoustic physics. For example, a low pianolike sound must remain pianolike when shifted in frequency. It must preserve the characteristic attack and decay of impulsive sounds as well as harmonic relationships. Two tones separated by an octave must maintain an octave separation shifted up in frequency.

Time-compression is playing data faster than it was recorded. It is a simple direct method of making low frequencies audible and it preserves the physics (the result still follows the wave equation). A data stream recorded at 40 samples/second and played at 8000 samples/second has a 200-times compression. This allows 3 hours of recording to be played back in less than a minute, comparable to the amount of time to quickly study 3 hours of plotted data.

6.3 AUTOMATIC GAIN CONTROL (AGC)
Some type of amplitude scaling has to be done to bring the signals in the range of the D-to-A. Many seismic signals have a dynamic range in excess of comfortable listening levels, so signals may be processed through an AGC prior to playback. AGC increases the volume during quiet periods and decreases it for large signals analogus to automatic level controls on recording equipment.

Window lengths are typically 200 samples or about 1/40 second for most traces.

It was also necessary to preprocess traces with AGC before doing frequency doubling.

Automatic Gain Control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_gain_control

6.4 FREQUENCY DOUBLING
While time-compressing data does move events from the subaudible to the audible, it brings with it another set of problems. Signals from some earthquakes may only last a minute on the original recording. Speeding up the recording by 200 times will result in a sound that only lasts a fraction of a second, so short that it is difficult to study. It may be recognisable as a single sound but it cannot be taken apart into its components.

Some early experimenters avoided the problem by using the minimum compression to make the seismogram audible. The resultant sounds were dominated by very low frequencies. Others shifted the frequencies into the audio range by multiplying the signal by a carrier to produce an FM signal. Unfortunately, this is an additive shift in frequencies. Thus, if 20 Hz is shifted to 440 Hz, then 40 Hz will be shifted to 480 Hz. This does not preserve the harmonic relationships. It also produces a section that is narrower bandwidth than the original (in terms of octaves) and a sound that is quickly fatiguing.

Close study requires a way to slow the playback without changing the pitch and the harmonic relationships. The operation of frequency doubling shifts any pure tone up one octave. The audio track may then be played at half speed to get the original pitch in a signal with twice the duration.

One problem with frequency doubling is that it accentuates the dominant energy and suppresses more subtle arrivals. Informal experiments indicated that it improves the display if digital automatic gain control is applied prior to frequency doubling.

Frequency Modulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation

6.5 ANNOTATION AND MARKERS
Undamped bell tones were used in the initial experiments. They were replaced with dreamlike sounds generated by passing an impulse through a narrow bandwidth, first order Butterworth filter.

Butterworth Filter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterworth_filter

6.6 LOOPING
For some recordings, using an equaliser to boost or cut different frequency ranges while the loop is playing will help extract particular sounds.

8. CONCLUSIONS
Annotation is particularly important. Good annotation allows the listener to match events on a graphic display with a correlated audio. In multiple annotations, tones must be separated from each other by slight frequency differences or positions in stereo. Annotation tones must be similar to the signal or the listener will perceive two unrelated streams and it will be difficult to relate the timing between the two.

9. FUTURE EXPERIMENTS
The use of audio suggests new possibilities for seismic attribute displays in exploration data, including direct hydrocarbon indicator displays of various types, audio attribute displays, and amplitude vs. offset displays. Of particular interest are displays for modelling and quick look, when the audio tag may indicate whether the visual display is useful.

The audio seismogram is still in its infancy. The tools to produce it are currently cumbersome and not part of the daily tool set available to seismic analysts. The real proof of the utility of the tool will come only when auditory display is a natural part of seismic analysis. This will require making audio tools accessible to working seismologists in a natural well-designed interface.


NOTABLE REFERENCES

1. Aki, K., and P.G. Richards. Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods. W.H. Freeman, 1980.

3. Bullen, K. E., and Bruce A. Bolt. An Introduction to the Theory of Seismology, 4th ed. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1985.

5. Frantti, G. E., and L. A. Leverault. "Auditory Discrimination of Seismic Signals from Earthquakes and Explosions." Bull. Seismol. Soc Am. 55(1) (1965): 1-26.

8. Speeth, Sheridan Dauster. "Seismonitor Sounds." J. Acous. Soc. Am. 33(7) (1961): 909-916.









79. Listening To The EarthSing - Chris Hayward

Earthquake Quartet #1 is a concept piece that starts by describing the earthquake cycle in which plate motions build up strain until it is suddenly released during earthquakes. The latter part of the piece is based on the idea that society and culture, including music, takes place with the earthquakes as an often ignored backdrop. However, the geologic processes are an instrinsic part of our existence and ignoring them can have its consequences. Listeners may recognize that one theme from the second section is a rhythmically distorted quote from the Allemande of Bach's second "Suite for Unaccompanied Cello" which is then further inverted and modified.

The seismograms  used in creating Earthquake Quartet #1 are the following;

* The 1992 magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake in southern California as recorded at Parkfield, California This is the large rumble heard near the beginning.

* Two recordings of a magnitude 2 earthquake at Parkfield and recorded at Parkfield on two different stations (beats 1 and 3).

*Two recordings of a magnitude 5.1 earthquake at Parkfield recorded at both Parkfield (beat 2) and at Hollister, California (beat 4). Note that the fourth beat is the slower moving S wave while the pickup to the fourth beat is the faster moving P wave.

Earthquake Quartet #1 was composed during November and December, 1999 and had its premiere at a presentation of "The Music of Earthquakes" on December 16 at Moscone Hall in San Francisco as part of the annual Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The musicians at the premiere were:

*Soprano and USGS Geophysicist Stephanie Ross
*Cellist and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory Geophysicist  Graduate David Schaff 
*Trombonist and USGS Geophysicist Andrew Michael

Earthquake Quartet #1 Web Page
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/music/

Earthquake Quartet #1 - Andy Michael

On 12th February 2013, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, its third in seven years. A tremor that exhibited a nuclear bomb signature with an initial magnitude 4.9 (later revised to 5.1) was detected by The China Earthquake Networks Center, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Commission and the United States Geological Survey.

This sound recording is made from collected mini-SEED BHZ data from station MAJO (GSN) and archived on IRIS Wilbur II. Sound processing of this data used Sonifyer (Speed x50) and Audacity effects of normalisation, bass boost and vocoder were used.

REFS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_Korean_nuclear_test
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000f5t0#summary
http://www.iris.edu/hq/files/programs/education_and_outreach/retm/tm_130212_northkorea/130212NorthKorea.pdf

* Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would be an unprecedented human catastrophe.
-- Carl Sagan



North Korea Nuclear Test Feb 12th 2013

"Philosophical and psychological research results show that there is a substantial difference between seeing and hearing a data set, because both evolve and accentuate different aspects of a phenomenon. From a philosophical point of view the eye is good for recognizing structure, surface and steadiness, whereas the ear is good for recognizing time, continuum, remembrance and expectation. In studying aspects like tectonic structure, surface deformation and regional seismic risk the visual modes of depiction are hard to surpass. But in questions of timely development, of characterization of a fault's continuum and of tension between past and expected events the acoustic mode of representation seems to be very suitable." - Florian Dombois

http://www.auditory-seismology.org

http://www.icad.org/icad2016/proceedings2/posters/ICAD2016_paper_21.pdf

SeismicSounds

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