COVID-19 lockdown effects on the seismic recordings in Central America

A noticeable decrease in seismic noise was registered worldwide during the lockdown measures implemented in 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In Central America, strong lockdown measures started during March of 2020. In this study, we used seismic stations from Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to study the effects of these measures on seismic records by characterizing temporal variations in the high-frequency band (4–14 Hz) via spectral and amplitude analyses. In addition, we studied the link between the reduction in seismic noise and the number of earthquake detections and felt reports in Costa Rica and Guatemala. We found that seismic stations near the capitals of Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador presented a decrease in their typical seismic noise levels, from 200 to 140, from 100 to 80, and from 120 to 80 nm, respectively. Our results showed that the largest reduction of ∼ 50 % in seismic noise was observed at seismic stations near main airports, busy roads, and densely populated cities. In Nicaragua, the seismic noise levels remained constant (∼ 40 nm), as no lockdown measures were applied. We suggest that the decrease in seismic noise levels may have increased earthquake detections and the number of felt reports of low-magnitude earthquakes. However, the variations observed in several seismic parameters before and after the lockdown are not significant enough to easily link our observations or separate them from other contributing factors. Our results imply that the study of seismic noise levels can be useful to verify compliance with lockdown measures and to explore their effects on earthquake detection and felt reports.