Vibrating slab of Antarctic ice sounds like a horror movie

In the faraway realms at the bottom of the Earth, Antarctic scientists have unexpectedly recorded bizarre drone-like sounds.

After burying 34 seismic monitors in the snow atop the Ross Ice Shelf in 2014 — which is a massive Texas-sized slab of ice that floats over the Southern Ocean — the instruments picked up near-constant “buzzing” noises. 

While normally inaudible to the human ear, the researchers have made these ultra-low frequencies detectable to our limited hearing range. They posted the eerie sounds online, along with a Geophysical Research Letters report on their greater research.

“If this vibration were audible, it would be analogous to the buzz produced by thousands of cicada bugs when they overrun the tree canopy and grasses in late summer,” Douglas MacAyeal, a glaciologist at the University of Chicago who had no role in the research, wrote in a commentary. Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Vibrating slab of Antarctic ice sounds like a horror movie