We just submitted a super-cool paper about seismic noise changes in China and Italy following COVID-19 lockdown. In Enshi (nearish Wuhan) the noise drop in the frequency band of pedestrians and local factories was equivalent to 20 years' worth of industrialization and growth. 
In Beijing (no official #lockdown) pedestrian traffic is *still* below a normal year, and has been for months. Here we compare 2018 and 2020 aligned by Lunar New Year, which always sees a noise drop as folks travel home. #seismicnoise #Covid_19
Meanwhile in Rome, the population seems to be behaving in an increasingly conservative way, with less and less #noise in the foot-traffic frequency band as the lockdown wears on.
As well as fascinating COVID-19 related behaviour, the amount of nuance and detail that #seismicnoise provides in illuminating cultural patterns is pretty amazing. For instance, Enshi activity is more tied to daylight hours, and they apparently don't take weekends...
Credit for this work belongs to Han Xiao, a graduate student here at #UCSB #EarthScience. Instead of an update on his normal #research, he came to group meeting about a week before the lockdown with some interesting #noise data from Chinese #seismometers... #beforenoisewascool.
Also should acknowledge the essential open data from @IRIS_EPO DMC. And if you like this, check out also the work of @seismotom who provides a @obspy @ProjectJupyter notebook for you to do similar analysis at home (where else would you do it from right now...) #SaferAtHome
