Yellowstone’s “Rock” Music
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:00:00] Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
All right. There we go. That's
Chris Bolhuis: We're lined up. Jesse. We are lined
Dr. Jesse Reimink: are ready to go. We got our ducks. They be in a row right now, Chris,
Chris Bolhuis: Well, I know about that,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: the hamsters, uh, on the wheel. It's not clear how fast he's moving the [00:00:30] wheel, but he's on the
Chris Bolhuis: and sometimes he definitely falls off the wheel,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, definitely. Hey, this episode today is a, a, a fun one and a bit of a deviation, I must say, because usually what we do is we talk mostly about Geology.
we sort of disparage biology occasionally, but that's usually really the only other field we talk about. Today is a bit of a deviation.
Chris Bolhuis: it is because this is about rock music.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes.
Chris Bolhuis: But remember, this is a Geology podcast, and so our version of [00:01:00] rock music
is a little
Dr. Jesse Reimink: it's a little different. And so this comes from a recent, a really cool recent thing that happened. This was in early May, this happened, basically what the, the story is here is that,
Chris Bolhuis: all right. Give us the rundown,
Jesse.
Let's go. Come
Dr. Jesse Reimink: let's do it. And so the story here is that Professor Dominico Hanza, who studies sonification, which, we'll get into what that is, but basically took seismic data, live seismic data from Yellowstone National Park from a, a seismometer [00:01:30] measuring seismic signals in Yellowstone National Park, and Sonification turned this seismic signal into.
Sound into musical notes. And then Dr. Alyssa Schwartz, who's a professor of flute and musicology, performed this live with this sort of so livestream seismic data, converted to musical notes, and then she's performing this. It's really cool. We've got a link in the show notes that you can listen to the actual music here, but that that's the story.
That's what we're gonna talk
Chris Bolhuis: And I think you need to listen to it. Uh, it's, it's really, really cool thing. [00:02:00] Um, alright, Jesse, data sonification. Okay. this is a weird thing. I, I, I don't know a lot about it, but what it is, this is the presentation of data as sound, using what's called sonification. So it's like, uh, this.
Auditory like equivalent, right. to the more established practice of data visualization. So this is sound visualization,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: exactly. And I think Chris, we've talked to a couple seismologists, Diana Roman, we talked to really early on in this podcast, and You know, [00:02:30] light and sound are kind of very similar and seismic wave energy is very similar to this too, where there's like a bunch of different wavelengths of the energy.
So the energy flowing through rocks has a bunch of different wavelengths and a bunch of different frequencies. So like the amplitude, if you think about the wave, a wave pattern, the height of the waves and the distance between the wave. Peak and crest can change a lot. And so when we get seismic data, it's much like sound data that has a bunch of different amplitudes and [00:03:00] wavelengths that can be applied to it.
So it's kind of this three dimensional data. So I could see why seismic data would be converted into sound but musical notes sounds kind of
hard, like.
Chris Bolhuis: the, and the fact that this was done live, and we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. But Jesse, first of all, I wanna just, let's talk a little bit about where this is applied in science actually, and Astronomy. The field of astronomy uses it quite often, and so does geoscience.
these are the two major fields of science that use data [00:03:30] sonification, and really it's, it's not all that new, to be honest with you. I mean, this ist like this is brand new stuff that we're
Dr. Jesse Reimink: And, and, uh, Domenico Vion Enza is a particle physicist and also did this for some, like, of the CERN particle physics, you know, big neutron collider type experiments, which is again, this really complicated three dimensional data. So, I guess, Chris, one thing that struck out to me about the point of this, cuz this is, it's an interesting exercise, but the point of it was sort of sold as, a way [00:04:00] for.
people with visual impairments to maybe experience Yellowstone National Park in a different way or have access to some of the, the sort of cool features that, that exist in Yellowstone National Park. How did that land with you? Did that, I mean, did that resonate with you?
Chris Bolhuis: it did, especially after listening to the live performance. and that's something that we need to emphasize. So Dr. Viza, he has this program that takes the seismic vibrations that turns them into notes, [00:04:30] And Dr. Schwartz had to play those notes. She did not have liberty in making up the
notes. The program gave her the notes. She had liberty in terms of, you know, how loud she played each note and things like that. She had some liberties that way, but the actual music was done with data sonification.
And, and so what that means is, think about this a second. I mean, Yellowstone has a lot of seismic activity, and we're gonna talk about that in just a minute, but, Because this was a live performance, you don't know what you're gonna [00:05:00] get. if you have this kind of crescendo of seismic activity going on at the time that they, they were gonna, do this, then it would be quite dramatic.
Otherwise, it could also be quite serene, depended upon what was going on in Yellowstone at that time. I think that would be very nerve-wracking for Dr. Schwartz to have
to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh my goodness. I can't even imagine. And Chris, let me, I just wanna put a pin in something and come back to this at the end of the episode. I want to know what you, listening to the music, what you would imagine a seismometer looking like from Yellowstone [00:05:30] while this was happening. Like, do you think that there was a big earthquake swarm going on or not?
was this really dramatic music or was it pretty serene? Calm music? Let's come back to that and let's, let's answer that question at the end because, you know, I, I think I. I think I have an idea. I think I have a guess of what it was like, but you're exactly right that Dr. Schwartz had a, I think maybe the harder task here
just by playing this live music.
Um, and the difficulty is cuz okay, this is livestream, so it's like new music showing up. At the time, you know, reading live [00:06:00] seismometer data, converting it into notes. So that's one difficult part. the more difficult part though, I thought was that, you know, seismic data has this kind of continuous time to it.
It's, it's a continuous stream of data, so it doesn't put in pauses for breaths or really like the tempo of music that as we think of it, right? So that seismometer data doesn't have that it. so she had to, she interpreted that part or she kind of layered on her expertise on top of that to interpret that.
So I think that was a really interesting point that Dr. Schwartz had to deal with.
Chris Bolhuis: [00:06:30] But one thing that they could count on is Yellowstone has a pretty consistent seismicity. Right? I mean, let's talk a
little bit
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Chris, just a Hold on real quick. You win the segue award right there. That was a great segue. Nicely done. Nicely done.
man.
Chris Bolhuis: See, we're getting better at this
stuff,
Jesse. Three years in and Here we
go.
Right. All right. So Yellowstone has more than 3000 earthquakes per year that's just a ballpark average. I mean, sometimes it has way much more activity than that.[00:07:00] so 500,000 of these earthquakes,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So Chris, let, let me interrupt real quick and just frame this. So 3000 earthquakes per year in Yellowstone. On average. On average globally, there's about 500,000 detectable earthquakes. And remember, our seismometers are way more sensitive than we are as humans. So humans can feel about a fifth of those a hundred thousand or so. Only about a hundred or so cause damage. So, you know, 3000 is a lot, a lot, a lot for one place out of 500,000 globally.
Chris Bolhuis: Interesting that you [00:07:30] bring this up because, and we've talked about this before, but we can do it again because it's our podcast and we can do what we want.
Um, so. But I do this in my Geology class every Thursday morning. I have three or four students come in at seven o'clock in the morning. That's an hour before our, traditional school day starts, they plot the earthquakes throughout the world.
I have this big nine foot by 13 foot map on one wall of my room, and it's a world map. And so they, they use the latitude and longitude and the [00:08:00] magnitude Of all of the earthquakes that have occurred during a seven day period, the seven days leading up to that, and they plot them.
And I have, um, different colors for different magnitudes. And look, by the time you're, you know, 6, 7, 8 weeks into this, it's absolutely amazing the sheer quantity of earthquakes that have happened throughout the world. Now, keep in mind too, we're only plotting earthquakes that are 4.5 and above.
So these are. These are detectable feelable [00:08:30] kind
of earthquakes, right? If because if I was doing all of the smaller ones and so on, we just wouldn't have enough time to
plot 'em. But it's such a cool thing because one, the sheer quantity of seismicity that occurs on our planet and two is you can clearly see a pattern develop. Like most earthquakes are not random in the world. a lot of them are focused along the Pacific Ring of Fire and you, so you see this very quickly. You see this horseshoe shape pattern around the Pacific Ocean develop, and it's just a, it's a very cool
thing.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: And
so you [00:09:00] probably doesn't take too many weeks for Yellowstone to show up on that map. Right. Or maybe even every week there's maybe not detectable ones, but you know, Yellowstone has a lot of small ones. Maybe they're not in
that feelable
Chris Bolhuis: Really good question. And no, if I dropped the parameters down to maybe a three and above, then we would see Yellowstone show up. But Yellowstone doesn't have a lot of bigger earthquakes. You know, like it's, it's rare for Yellowstone to have a 4.9, let's say [00:09:30] earthquake.
that's a big deal in Yellowstone National Park.
So,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So that, that's an interesting point, Chris, and I think that also leads us nicely into, uh, sort of why, why does Yellowstone have a lot of these? Quite small, uh, relatively small, but certainly detectable by seismometers and therefore playable with the flute, after Sonification, they're playable with the flute.
Why does Yellowstone have all of these earthquakes? Why does it have 3000 per year on average?
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, I wonder if our listeners are thinking about this, like what their response [00:10:00] would be right now, like, alright, here's the question. Why does Yellowstone have so much seismic activity? A lot of our listeners have a general, basis or background in, in Yellowstone now because we've talked about it quite a bit.
I think of three things when I think of this. Right, Jesse, do you think the three things
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I think, yeah, I, we're probably on the same page and and this is a good time to interject and say that we have just released a Yellowstone audiovisual guidebook. It's on geo.camp courses.com. The same place you'd access Camp Geo. We've talked about Camp Geo [00:10:30] before. It's really kind of the same structure, meaning.
Audio files, audio discussions that Chris, you and I are going through with key images. We've created images, really beautiful little gif. and cool live videos of certain geological features. But we cover everything from the mantle plume, which we're gonna talk about real quick right here to hydrothermal features, which we're really briefly gonna touch on as well.
So all of that is there. If you just go to geo.com, courses.com, you can see it there.
Chris Bolhuis: I just want to say, Jesse, we cover basic, you, you gave a few examples. I'm just gonna [00:11:00] say this, we cover everything
in Yellowstone National Park. Like we, we, this is a comprehensive thing, so if you wanna, if you're going to Yellowstone and you wanna understand what you're gonna be looking at and be able to look at this place with a different incredible lens,
this is for
you,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: exactly. So go there, check it out. It's the first link in your show notes. Okay. Chris,
back to Yellowstone, all the earthquakes. Three things. What are the three things we're thinking about right now?
Chris Bolhuis: Well, I think of Yellowstone as kind of huffing and puffing. it's inhaling and it's exhaling[00:11:30] this is all in response to the mantle plume that's below this, right? This hotspot and so the rock above it. it can't just expand and contract neatly, right?
It's gonna, it's gonna crack and break. It's kind of the snap, crackle, and pop. You know, that's going on with what's happening with the hotspot beneath it. And so that's a source of these earthquakes, or at least it can be a source of these earthquakes. You also have circulating groundwater, I mean all of the hydrothermal features and so on.
And you have this water that's really hot, under a lot of [00:12:00] pressure. It's got a lot of dissolved gases in it and so on. That circulating pressure is gonna cause rock to break as
well
Dr. Jesse Reimink: right Chris. And
we talked about one of these, uh, one of these earthquakes in 2014 in Norris Geyser Basin. We have a chapter in our Yellowstone book on Norris Geyser Basin, and this is a hydrothermal, sort of volcanic gas buildup type event, right? And so we talk about that in some detail that we don't have time to go into right now, but.
That's kind of, um, a thing I think most people don't think about when they're thinking about earthquakes is, especially on the [00:12:30] smaller end gases, hydrothermal circulation cells and patterns can break rock or can drive some of these smaller scale earthquakes that are doing a lot of, uh, sort of pressure release type processes, right?
They're releasing gas pressure, releasing hydrothermal buildup pressure. And especially when we consider earthquakes less than four, that process comes to mind. Rocks breaking is the big stuff up to eight to nine, right.
That's all rock breaking stuff. But the lower, the smaller earthquakes can be generated by these [00:13:00] processes that we're describing. So, okay. Huffing and puffing, circulating water. That's one and two. What was the third one?
Chris Bolhuis: well, Yellowstone is very near this basin and range province that's part of the country that's expanding. That's kind of like, imagine taking an accordion and squishing it. Okay. That was from a tectonic event that has long since ended. Right. But take that squished accordion and set it down on a desktop and then walk away, the accordion will just kind of like, uh, you know, to expand,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:13:30] That's, Hey Chris, that was great. Sonification of a geologic process right there. Well done.
Chris Bolhuis: Data Sonification done by Crystal
Heis.
Um, and, and so th that process is going on and that can result in bigger earthquakes. like for instance, the 1959 earthquake just outside of Yellowstone in, in a place called Hein Lake, which is an amazing place and an amazing geological story, but that was a seven.
Point five magnitude earthquakes. So all three of those things are going on in and [00:14:00] around the greater Yellowstone
area.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: And I just want to kind of back up real quick and say two of those things, the huffing and puffing and circulating hydrothermal water and gases, those are both intimately related to the hotspot, to the mantle plume hotspot. The extension is kind of separate. That's a different tectonic driver, really.
So we kind of have two processes and three, earthquake drivers. So like two, large scale tectonic. Events and then three earthquake driving processes in there. Does that make sense? Kind of [00:14:30] describing it that way, Chris?
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, that's a good point. I, I didn't, yeah, I didn't mean to
confuse
those. Those are, it's like this triple junction that's kind of going on in Yellowstone, but like you said, two of 'em are related to the hotspot and the third one, that extensional has nothing really to
do with
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Exactly. It's a separate process, but the juxtaposition, the interaction between the manto plume and this, extensional environment leads to some really interesting features in Yellowstone. And again, we go into some deeper detail in the Yellowstone book there.
Chris Bolhuis: Hey, one other throwback that I wanna, [00:15:00] I want to go back to that, like you said, that early interview with Diana Roman, because she kind of does this data sonification too.
she didn't refer to it as data sonification, but they do pay attention to the frequency of seismic waves when they're monitoring. trying to figure out what's going on with volcanoes and volcanic eruptions. She talked about the two voices of volcanoes.
She talked about the Barry White, you know, Hey baby, that
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah,
Chris Bolhuis: even, that was
[00:15:30] horrible.
Cut that
out.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: better than I could do, so I won't give you a hard time
for it.
Chris Bolhuis: I will not attempt Mariah Carey, but when Mariah Carey shows up, this is a very, very different frequency. Right. And, and she made the point of, you know, when Mariah Carey shows up, then something is going on with this volcano.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: And Chris, let me just say that that was a point that Dr. Za said early on too, is that. They didn't really know what kind of music was going to be generated by Yellowstone at this time. if there's significant [00:16:00] activity, big spikes, then it can be a really dramatic piece of music.
If not, it can be kind of quite serene. So they really didn't know what was gonna be happening up. And I love that quote from Diana that when Mariah Carey shows up, you know, pay attention. The other thing Diana, Was doing, which I thought was really interesting, was I think, kind of inverting this thing instead of taking data and turning it into sound.
She was using algorithms like voice recognition pattern, algorithms that were like, Trained on and designed for audio things [00:16:30] and applying those to seismic data. So kind of reversing this process and saying, Hey, I'm gonna take an algorithm designed for audio and use it on seismic data To recognize patterns in forecast, earthquakes in kind of a unique and different way. So I, there's a lot of interesting, like,
you know, juxtapositions between these fields.
Chris Bolhuis: That's right. It's been a long time since we had this interview with Diana Roman. So if it's been a long time since you've listened to that episode, or you have not listened to that episode yet, go back, it's a really, really this cool [00:17:00] parallel between what we're talking about here
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Totally, totally. And like you said, Chris, let's just wrap up here and like you said, listen. listen to the link in the show notes. Listen to this music played by Dr. Schwartz. It's really cool, and, and listen to it and visualize, you know, little swarms of earthquake. So, I wanted to come back to this.
Chris, what do you think the seismic activity was after listening to that music?
Chris Bolhuis: Alright, well I think that it was probably Yellowstone. During this live stream was [00:17:30] probably pretty quiet. I, I don't envision it was serene. It was very soothing. it was definitely not a harmonic tremor
going
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That, that's, uh, exactly, that's what I thought too. And it's an interesting point that Yellowstone seismicity often occurs in swarms. So you get a whole bunch of earthquake in a swarm and that's, this is pretty common elsewhere as well. But Yellowstone might be more sort of Prone to seismic swarms than other places.
And so, yeah, I definitely interpreted this as a calm period in the seismicity [00:18:00] of Yellowstone, but I don't know if that's right or not. Uh, it would be interesting to look at the seismic, you know, the seismogram from this same window, which, probably should have done, but I, I didn't look that up. So, uh, yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, I didn't see it either. I did see the notes. I saw the sheet music that was produced. By this. but yeah, I did not
see the Seismic Graham.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: just kind of wanted to avoid it and not, you know, precondition myself before listening to this music, right? So I'd encourage everybody to do that. It's a really kind of a cool thing to listen to and [00:18:30] individualize and to think about, how you might consider turning seismic data into music.
It's very, very, very cool thing. Hey, that's a wrap. You can, like we said before, can learn all about Yellowstone National Park. We have our geological visual audio book guide that is on geo.camp courses.com. It's there right now. It's right next to the Camp Geo Content, camp Geo, that is the basics of geoscience.
if you wanna learn all about the basics of Geology, just like in our introductory Geology classes, It's all there for you with some really cool [00:19:00] visuals and Yellowstone sits right next to that. Go to our website, planet geo cast.com.
There you can you can support us, and you can see all of our past episodes. Last thing, send us emails if you have questions. We love those. Planet Geo cast@gmail.com.
Chris Bolhuis: Cheers.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Peace.
