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The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

discovermagazine.com

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Re: The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

#41

Post by nemacol »

This is super interesting. The area they have narrowed down is nearly in line with the mountain range that falls off into the ocean.

The way ocean waves / currents hit the topology of that mountain range? Some geologic activity that is somehow more active when the ocean is more active?

Hard to imagine anything to do with ocean waves and storms could be consistent enough to produce this effect. I understand there is some average wave periods but storms normally disrupt patterns.

All very interesting.

Re: The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

#42

Post by taneq »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #7
abhinai wrote: post #5

Why haven’t I heard about this before? This seems too important a detail for my school textbooks to have left out and for popular culture to lack any references to it whatsoever. What am I missing?

> For popular culture to lack any references to it whatsoever As the first paragraph of the article has mentioned, at least xkcd has a reference [0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/2344/

Funny because (I'm sure like many people) before I even clicked on that my gut feeling was "clearly a sleeping kaiju".

Re: The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

#44

Post by taneq »

rishav_sharan wrote: post #15
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For popular culture to lack any references to it whatsoever As the first paragraph of the article has mentioned, at least xkcd has a reference [0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/2344/

Is there really any subject on which there is no xkcd? They are the Simpsons of web cartoons.

There's no topic without a relevant xkcd, and there's no event that The Simpsons didn't predict, and if it exists there's porn of it. The internet has rules.

Re: The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

#45

Post by throwaway316943 »

RobertoG wrote: post #37
CamperBob2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, assuming the location in the comic is correct. It is very close to 0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude. Many people who have built or used GIS applications are familiar with "Null Island." It should probably have been called "Bug Island." If you have bugs in your GIS code, this is where they tend to lurk.

>>" It is very close to 0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude." The 0 latitude could be relevant, but that the 0 longitude is in there is more an historical accident. The shape of the African continent is also interesting there.

There appears to be a mountain range that runs straight into the ocean there. Oddly right in the middle of the bite. I wonder what that area looked like when ocean levels were lower.

Re: The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

#47

Post by st_goliath »

aritmo wrote: post #19

Thanks to the article editor who did not do the common "The Earth is pulsating every 26 seconds and NOBODY KNOWS WHY."

Also thanks for actually using the word seismologist instead of just calling them generic "scientists".

Browsing through this website, it looks like Discover Magazine is a little bit more qualitative than the usual pop-science fluff sites.

According to Wikipedia it was a 1980 Time Magazine spin-off that featured more in-depth reporting on scientific topics, but still aimed at a general audience and even had a column called "Skeptical Eye" that dissected the usual pop-science fluff making headlines elsewhere[1].

Sadly tough, since its inception it has changed hands several times (and had some interesting owners, including Disney) until it eventually went with the trend of dumbing things down. The "Skeptical Eye" column was dropped quite early on in favour of more controversial stuff that it used to be sceptical off, in hopes to drive up sales[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_(magazine)

Re: The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why

#48

Post by joshocar »

est31 wrote: post #36

Could it be an underwater geysir? 26 seconds is right in the period length for a geysir. Maybe due to the higher pressure due to greater depth it has more of an "explosion" characteristic than traditional geysirs so that it causes a seismic event?

I don't think geysers really exist under the sea. The pressure would keep steam from forming and therefore stop a pressure build up. Every geothermal feature I have seen under the ocean has been a steady stream of superheated fluid. As an example, I took a temperature reading on one black smoker and it was 320°C and still fluid.
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