Last updated: March 12 2007 10:14:48
Task 3.3c New Applications in the Grid Environment  



Several EELA partners are currently working in four different fields of e-science, namely Biomedicine (Task 3.1), HEP (Task 3.2) and e-Learning and Climate (Task 3.3). However, new applications, not foreseen at the beginning of the project, are welcome and the first one is described below. A “Questionnaire for New Applications” can be found either in the EELA Home Page or in the menu bar, under WP3.

Volcano Sonification

Currently, no definitive method to predict the eruption of a volcano has been discovered or implemented yet. By correlating spectra and melodies with precise stages of volcanic activity we hope to discover a sort of “signature tune” of an imminent eruption or earthquake and by identifying musical patterns that warn of an eruption it would be possible to implement civil protection measures, days or even hours before the event.

The motivations for working on this are:

  • Sonic representations are particularly useful when dealing with complex, high-dimensional data, or in data monitoring tasks where it is practically impossible to use the visual inspection, or for pattern detection.
  • Research has shown that people are quite more confident in recognizing patterns audibly rather then visually.
  • Music theorists and researchers have carried out in centuries of history lots of techniques and methods to detect, study and classify musical phrases.
Thus, the main idea is to take music as a language and music analysis as a tool to inspect scientific data.
This research has Etna and Tungurahua volcanos as first examples of sonifications, the calculations of which have been performed in the EELA e-Infrastructure by INFN & CERN.

Dissemination Activities

  • Santiago (Chile), 1st EELA Conference, 4-5 September 2006
    • A presentation of the status of the Volcano Sonification Application
  • Geneva (Switzerland), EGEE06 Conference, 25-29 September 2006
    • A presentation of the deployment of the EELA Applications in the SEE-GRID Regional Grids Workshop
  • Granada (Spain), Jornadas Técnicas RedIRIS 2006 y XXII Grupos de Trabajo, 13-17 November 2006
    • A presentation of the EELA Applications
  • Geneva (Switzerland), CERN, December 2006
    • An interview about volcanoes sonification by the Discovery Channel
  • Lyngby (Denmark), TERENA Networking Conference, 21-24 May 2007
    • A presentation of the status of the Volcano Sonification application


Links to slides presented in conferences, papers, posters, etc. can be found here:

- WP3 DOCUMENTS

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EELA DOCUMENTS