Using thunderquakes to X-ray earth – a new study shows urban seismology in action

When lightning strikes, it superheats the air around it and creates a shock wave that we hear as thunder. But thunder doesn’t just travel through the atmosphere to our ears.

When that energy reaches the ground, some of it is converted into seismic waves that ripple through the soil and rock beneath. The resulting vibrations are known as thunderquakes.

Until now, scientists haven’t understood these signals well enough to make practical use of them. Our team’s research shows that thunderquakes can be used to map the structure beneath the Earth’s subsurface – such as groundwater movement, environmental contamination, sinkholes, or for evaluating building sites and foundations – just like X-rays image inside the human body.

We discovered this by listening to thunder with something found in communities around the world but unusual as a seismic measuring instrument: fibre-optic cable.