Earth has been hiding several mysteries in its heart ever since it was born billions of years ago, the focus being "heart" here. Scientists say that just like the people who live here, our home planet Earth, also has a heartbeat. It is a faint one that occurs approximately every 26 seconds. The "heartbeat" was first discovered in the 1960s by a geologist named Jack Oliver. But even after over 60 years, not much is known about them, primarily because seismologists have better things to do.

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Earth's mysterious "heartbeat" is like mini earthquakes that strike every few seconds. The origin is believed to lie somewhere in the southern or equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Even though Oliver was the first to notice it, he could not study the pulses in detail because of a lack of equipment.

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Earth's "heartbeat" once again grabbed attention decades later when Mike Ritzwoller, a seismologist at the University of Colorado, noticed that something was pulsating inside the planet. This time, he could do something about it because of the advancement in technology.

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This "heartbeat" is scientifically known as microseisms. Besides Ritzwoller, Garrett Eule is another seismologist who has observed the strange pulses and tried to zero in on the source.

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His work led him to narrow down the source to a part of the Gulf of Guinea called the Bight of Bonny. He talked about it at the Seismological Society of America conference in 2013. 

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What's causing Earth's heart to beat?

Eule says it is because of the ocean waves and the pressure difference in the water during its movement. When waves hit the continental shelf, where the solid ground is much closer to the surface, the pressure deforms the ocean floor, Eule said. This causes seismic pulses, also known as microseisms.

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However, a Chinese scientist says the "heartbeat" is the result of volcanoes. Yingjie Xia from the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics in Wuhan, China, points to a volcano on the island of São Tomé in the Bight of Bonny. He states that the origin of the pulses was close to this volcano. He says a similar occurrence has also been observed at the Aso Volcano in Japan.

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Why is no one studying Earth's "heartbeat"?

Despite generating so much excitement, scientists are not keen on devoting a lot of time to solving the mystery of the pulses, Earth's "heartbeat". Scientist Doug Wines told Discover Magazine, "We want to determine the structure beneath the continents, things like that. This is just a little bit outside what we would typically study."

It seems the reason behind Earth's "heartbeat" might not be revealed for many more years to come unless someone deems solving the mystery crucial.