In any given instant, one or more rocky plates beneath Earth's surface are in motion, and now visitors to a California museum exhibit can hear virtually every big and small earthquake simultaneously in just a few seconds off real time.

Scientists have captured earthquake noises before, but this is believed to be the first instantaneous, unified recording of multiple global tectonic events, and it sounds like the constant, dull roar of the world's biggest earthquake chorus.

"There can't be silence," said Franz John, who created the museum project with sound artist Ed Osborn and colleagues. "If you 'heard' silence, the Internet connection would have broken down, or the planet would be dead."

The project, called "Turing Tables," was inspired by mathematician Alan Turing, whose theory held that individuals could create something finite out of a potentially infinite source. Turing focused on infinite number chains, but John's interest is in the "tectonic forces and energies of a matrix, which is visibly and continually updating and renewing itself."