Good morning, DMV*! It’s Wednesday, April 29.
Today I want to reflect on moments of awe and nerd out on a study I stumbled across while going through the online rabbit warrens. (It’s not DMV-related, though the researcher is from Johns Hopkins University in nearby Baltimore.)
During the solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, a “seismic hush” fell across North American cities that were in the path of totality, according to research presented earlier this month at a seismology meeting in California.
My mom and daughter during the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, in Mount Vernon, Illinois. (Alisa Tang)
I reached out to Johns Hopkins University seismologist and planetary scientist Benjamin Fernando to learn more.
“I was in Cleveland, OH for the eclipse, and noticed that it got awfully dark and quiet,” he wrote to me in an email. “People stopped moving, the birds stopped chirping, and so on. I was curious as to whether this signal might have been replicated in the seismic data, as it turns out, it was indeed.”
He dug into publicly available data from hundreds of seismic stations, then spent “a very long time (months)” establishing the baseline for an average Monday afternoon in the United States, then compared that to eclipse day.
Seismic noise caused by human activity that shakes the ground can come from construction, mining, concerts, sporting events and traffic.
Benjamin found a clear pattern: Noise levels peaked slightly before the start of totality in a city, faded significantly as the moon blocked the sun, then rose to slightly higher than average levels for the month.
The pattern was only visible in cities in the path of totality, but there was no comparable hush in cities that were even slightly out of the path of totality, he said.
“For example, in New York it was 97% totality, but nothing changed,” Benjamin said in a news release.
The findings suggest that in cities in the path of totality, the eclipse disrupted “the rhythms of normal life,” the news release said.
I wrote him a follow-up email: “I wish we could have more times like that — it seems like it was due to a massive moment of awe ….”
He replied: “I’m so with you — we could certainly use more times of peace and quiet in today’s world.”
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📰 News around the DMV
23 things to do in the D.C. area this week and weekend (Washingtonian)
🐦 Things to do
Calling all artists: Artomatic, one of my favorite D.C. art events, is hosting a happy hour 4:30 p.m. today at Busboys and Poets in the Takoma neighborhood of D.C. Artomatic is a volunteer-run, unjuried arts festival that transforms large spaces (e.g., empty office buildings) into temporary galleries and performance venues. I went to Artomatic 2024, and it was so much fun. (Read about it here.) For the happy hour, Artomatic co-presidents George Koch and James Albright will discuss how artists can curate their studio and presentation space.
Calling all birders: The DC Bird Alliance and Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes are hosting blind and low-vision birders during the Blind Bird-a-thon at Wheaton Regional Park this Sunday at 9 a.m. If anyone wants to volunteer as a sighted guide, please email [email protected].
Calling all history nerds: The DC History Conference is this weekend at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. It’s free and open to students, educators and community members. Pre-registration is recommended.
📷 Your joy
(Rich Newman)
Rich Newman, 44, of Round Hill, Virginia, captured this image on the afternoon of April 20.
“A nice view of the Shenandoah Valley from Raven Rocks Road which runs along the Blue Ridge Mountains north of Route 7,” he wrote in his submission.
My mail route takes me past this view every day, and I've been wanting to get a good photo to share. With how chilly it was Monday morning it made it a lot clearer than it has been lately (it's far enough that it can usually be pretty hazy).
* In case you’re wondering: The DMV is how residents here call the D.C. region, which includes Maryland and Virginia. Readers often ask. Now you know.
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CORRECTION: I mistakenly wrote that Busboys and Poets is in Takoma Park, Maryland. A reader wrote to point out it’s in the Takoma neighborhood of D.C. — which I knew, but my head was in a muddle. Thanks to all of you readers who are my fact checkers and copyeditors!
