科学家发现大风暴会造成“风暴地震”

科学家发现大风暴会造成“风暴地震”

Scientists have discovered a mash-up of two feared disasters — hurricanes and earthquakes — and they’re calling them “stormquakes.”

科学家们发现了两种令人恐惧的灾难——飓风和地震——的混合体，他们称之为“风暴地震”。

The shaking of the sea floor during hurricanes and nor’easters can rumble like a magnitude 3.5 earthquake and can last for days, according to a study in this week’s journal Geophysical Research Letters. The quakes are fairly common, but they weren’t noticed before because they were considered seismic background noise.

根据本周《地球物理研究快报》(geophysical research letters)杂志上的一项研究，在飓风和东北风期间，海底的震动可能会像3.5级地震一样隆隆作响，持续数日。海底地震是相当普遍的，但它们以前没有被注意到，因为它们被认为是风暴的背景噪声。

A stormquake is more an oddity than something that can hurt you, because no one is standing on the sea floor during a hurricane, said Wenyuan Fan, a Florida State University seismologist who was the study’s lead author.

这项研究的主要作者、佛罗里达州立大学地震学家范文远(wenyuan fan)说，风暴地震比能伤害你的东西更奇怪，因为飓风期间没有人站在海底。

The combination of two frightening natural phenomena might bring to mind ”Sharknado,” but stormquakes are real and not dangerous.

这两种可怕的自然现象结合在一起可能会让人联想到“Sharknado”，但风暴地震是真实存在的，并不危险。

“This is the last thing you need to worry about,” Fan told The Associated Press.

范文远对美联社说：“这是你最不需要担心的事情。”

Storms trigger giant waves in the sea, which cause another type of wave. These secondary waves then interact with the seafloor — but only in certain places — and that causes the shaking, Fan said. It only happens in places where there’s a large continental shelf and shallow flat land.

风暴会在海洋中引发巨浪，从而产生另一种类型的波浪。范文远说，这些二次波随后与海底相互作用——但只在某些地方发生作用——这就造成了震动。它只发生在有大片大陆架和浅滩的地方。