ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Seismic interferometry

Okay kiddo, have you ever heard of earthquakes? They are like big vibrations or shakes deep inside the earth. Scientists use very sensitive machines called seismometers to measure these vibrations.

Now, seismic interferometry is a cool trick that scientists use to study these vibrations without having to set up a lot of seismometers in different places.

It is like when you sit in a room with lots of echoes because of the way the walls are built. If you clap your hands, you hear the echo of your clapping bouncing off different walls.

In seismic interferometry, scientists use these echoes of vibrations that bounce off the surfaces of the earth to create a sort of map called a seismic image. They take the echoes of vibrations from different places and use mathematics to combine them.

It’s like if you have a lot of Lego blocks and you want to make a bigger and more detailed structure, you can build different parts of it and then fit them together. Scientists do something similar with seismic interferometry.

They take the echoes from different seismometers, combine them using some maths, and make a more detailed picture of what’s going on deep inside the earth.

So, this is how scientists can find out about things like the different layers that make up the earth, where oil or gas might be hidden, or how earthquakes happen.

Seismic interferometry is like listening to echoes to tell us what is going on deep inside the earth. It helps scientists learn more about the planet we live on.