Thunder + fiber-optic cabling used for seismic imaging

Penn State scientists have developed a model to extract usable seismic data from thunderquakes—the seismic signals generated when thunder creates shock waves that penetrate Earth's crust—and used it to reconstruct terrain beneath their campus by analyzing the complex patterns of acoustic energy from lightning strikes.

Each thunderquake is unique due to different lightning paths and conditions, so the model is an approximation; further work will be needed to determine practical applications beyond small-scale mapping.