With a trunk that produces 110-decibel blasts that can be heard for miles, elephants are well-equipped for long-distance communication. But it turns out they may be letting their feet do some of the talking, too.

Using tools designed for detecting earthquakes, researchers found that different elephant activities — walking, running, snorting, grunting — create distinct “seismic signatures” in the ground. In some cases, according to a study published Monday in the journal Current Biology, these vibrations travel farther through the ground than they could through the air, giving the animals a variety of powerful methods for long-distance communication.

“It’s not surprising that walking affects their vibrations, but they’re so big that their snorts and grunts also generate very low-frequency vibrations,” said Beth Mortimer, a biologist at both the Universities of Oxford and Bristol and lead author of the study. “And by monitoring the vibrations through the ground, we could determine what the elephants were doing.”

Earlier studies have shown that elephants may be monitoring ground vibrations through their bodies, a trait more commonly associated with small creatures like scorpions and insects. For example, elephants have been observed fleeing for higher ground in the moments before distant tsunamis, and a mother elephant who feels threatened will stomp on the ground to warn others away. By suggesting that elephants not only cause distinct vibrations with different activities, but can perceive the difference from great distances, the research expands the possibilities of what the animals may be communicating.