"Earthquake Fugue (for six elephants... )" genre: Abstract
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	Earthquake Fugue (a SoundScape for Six Elephants, Two Rhinoceroses, and Solo Brontosaurus). "Earthquake Fugue" is made entirely of actual earthquake data as recorded by seismographs and underwater hydrophones by the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration. The earthquake sounds were speeded up (to bring them into the human hearing range) and processed electronically and combined in a variety of ways to make "Earthquake Fugue". [March 2000; DDD]
	MP3.com CD: Music of the Human Genome - buy it! MP3.com CD: Music of Brent Hugh - buy it! Credits: Mother Earth; NOAA VENTS Acoustics Monitoring Program; U.S. Geological Survey; Brent Hugh
	Story Behind the Song OK--the part about the elephants, rhinos, and brontosaurus is a bit of a joke, but it really is true that this piece is made entirely from seismograph recordings of earthquakes. The main earthquake sound is from a series of six extremely loud volcanic tremor-like signals emanating from the Volcanic Island Chain south of Japan. Each tremor lasts about 5 minutes with a 30-second quiet period before the next tremor. In "Earthquake Fugue" you can hear parts of this series of tremors played in real-time (these frequencies are very low and are more felt than heard), at 2x speed, 4x speed, 8x speed, and 16x speed. All of these different speeds are overlaid on each other so that you hear them all simultaneously (thus the "Fugue" part of the title). Above this background, you hear earthquake vibrations (played at approximately 16-speed) that sound a lot like "knocking" and "breathing" sounds. The "knocking" sounds are from seismograph recordings of an event in Petrolia (northern California) and the "breathing" sounds are from the 1992 Landers earthquake in southern California. For more information about the NOAA VENTS Acoustics Monitoring Program (including downloadable sound files) see: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics.html For earthquake sounds at USGS, see http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/info/listen/download.html

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