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The seismic sensors have for the first time detected the event near an island located between Madagascar and Africa. Then, alarm signals sounded all the way to Chile, New Zealand and Canada.
Hawaii, almost exactly on the other side of the planet, also took part in the event.
Nobody knows what it was.
Meteorite? Underwater volcano? Nuclear test?
"I do not think I have seen anything like it"National Geographic Göran Ekström, seismologist of the University of Colombia, reportedly said. "That does not mean that, ultimately, their cause is so exotic."
At the center of the mystery is the tiny island of Mayotte, located halfway between Africa and Madagascar. It has been subjected to a swarm of earthquakes since May. Most were minor, but the largest – May 8 – was the largest in the history of the islands, with a maximum magnitude of 5.8.
But the earthquake swarm was in decline before the mysterious ring was detected earlier this month.
Ekström, a specialist in unusual earthquakes, points out that the November 11 event was strange. It was as if the planet sounded like a bell, maintaining a low monotonous frequency during its spread.
Earthquakes, by their very nature, tend to be very short "cracks". When tensions in the earth's crust are abruptly dissipated, clearly identifiable seismic waves radiate to where the landslide occurs.
The first signal is called the primary wave: a high frequency compression wave that emits packets.
Then comes a secondary wave: these high-frequency waves tend to "move" a little more.
It is only then that the surface waves come: these slow and deep rubs tend to linger and can go around the Earth several times.
The event of November 11 is remarkable in that no primary or secondary wave was detected.
All that was recorded was the deep, resonant surface wave. And that did not "resonate" as the surface wave of an earthquake tends. Instead, he maintained a much cleaner frequency – almost musical.
National Geographic reports that the French Geological Survey suspects a new volcano to develop off Mayotte. Although the island was created by volcanic activity, it has been dormant for more than 4000 years.
The French think that this strange ringing may have been caused by a movement of magma located about 50 km from the coast and under deep water. This is corroborated by GPS sensors detecting that Mayotte has moved about 5 cm to the southeast in less than five months.
But it is a poorly mapped region. One can only guess exactly what lies beneath the ocean.
Ekström thinks that the unusually pure signal could have been caused by the slippage of magma inside a room or by the forced pbadage of a space in the underground rocks.
But he is not sure.
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