Quake forecaster
Researchers from India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, hope they've come up with a way of providing an early warning of earthquakes. They are filing patent applications around the world which claims success where all others have failed.
All kinds of prediction techniques have been tried in the past – checking water levels and helium build up in wells and monitoring for ultra low frequency radio waves generated by subsurface tensions. But nothing has proven reliable at predicting the time and place of a quake.
The Indian research team are using an acoustic meteorological technique called Sonic Detection and Ranging (Sodar) – used to measure wind speeds by firing sound pulses through the air and checking for Doppler frequency shifts.
The patent says examination of Sodar logs show traces of an unexpected infrasonic wave that lasted 4 hours prior to an earthquake that occurred near Bhuj in western India, in January 2001. Going back through logs reaching back to 1976 from several more detectors showed no similar traces, and no sign that the 2001 wave was picked up by other Sodar stations more than 250 kilometres away from the quake.
The patented system will uses a parabolic dish to fire sonic pulses at 50 millisecond intervals vertically into the sky, 24 hours a day, while recording the faint reflections that come back down from the atmosphere. If there are any infrasonic sound waves around these will imprint on the reflections.
The patent claims the system could give a warning several hours before any quake larger than 5 on the Richter scale and within 250 km of the dish. But whether the system works as predicted cannot be known until another large quake strikes.
Read the earthquake prediction patent, here (pdf format).
Earthquake prediction technique?
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Can Earthquakes be Predicted? Forecasts Based on Atmospheric Ions prove Correct in Awaji Island Quake
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/05/03/c ... and-quake/
On April 6, the measuring equipment in Minamiawaji City, Hyôgo Prefecture recorded a surge in ionic numbers from the usual level of below 1,000 per cubic centimeter to 12,000 ions per cubic centimeter. Based on their analysis of the data the following day, the organization announced their expectation of “ a magnitude-5 earthquake in Awaji Island”.
About a week later, on April 13, there was a magnitude-6.3 earthquake with its epicenter in the vicinity of Awaji Island.
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/05/03/c ... and-quake/
Ants Can Predict Earthquakes, Says University Study
Scientists from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany have completed a study that suggests that ants can sense impending earthquakes. The study, presented by Gabriele Berberich at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, shows that ants change their behaviour before a quake and resume normal behaviour on the day after the quake subsides.
The research team reached its conclusion after studying European red wood ants for three years; the specific focus was on ants that built colonies along active fault lines in Germany. These lines are cracks formed on the surface of the earth due to violent ruptures.
The study counted 15,000 ant mounds lining the faults and used specially designed software to track the ants' activities, 24 hours a day, between 2009 and 2012. Analysis suggests the behaviour patterns of the ants changed every time there was an earthquake that measured higher than 2.0 on the Richter scale. There were a total of 10 quakes, between 2.0 and 3.2, during the study period.
Sensing the Quake
Researchers said that on the day before a quake, ants would not enter the mound at night. Instead, they would move around outside the structure. This behaviour continued until a day after the quake. The report suggested this was perhaps the most advanced and accurate display of animals predicting natural calamities.
Berberich suggests the awareness levels could be a result of an ability to register changing gas emissions or note tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic field. Red wood ants have special cells called chemoreceptors, which allow them to detect changes in carbon dioxide levels. They also have magnetoreceptor cells, which help them detect electromagnetic fields.
The researchers now plan to continue their studies in areas with more frequent and intense seismic activity.
The study is believed to be the first to have discovered ants' ability to predict earthquakes. Previous research suggests ants can withstand high levels of radioactivity.
Scientists from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany have completed a study that suggests that ants can sense impending earthquakes. The study, presented by Gabriele Berberich at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, shows that ants change their behaviour before a quake and resume normal behaviour on the day after the quake subsides.
The research team reached its conclusion after studying European red wood ants for three years; the specific focus was on ants that built colonies along active fault lines in Germany. These lines are cracks formed on the surface of the earth due to violent ruptures.
The study counted 15,000 ant mounds lining the faults and used specially designed software to track the ants' activities, 24 hours a day, between 2009 and 2012. Analysis suggests the behaviour patterns of the ants changed every time there was an earthquake that measured higher than 2.0 on the Richter scale. There were a total of 10 quakes, between 2.0 and 3.2, during the study period.
Sensing the Quake
Researchers said that on the day before a quake, ants would not enter the mound at night. Instead, they would move around outside the structure. This behaviour continued until a day after the quake. The report suggested this was perhaps the most advanced and accurate display of animals predicting natural calamities.
Berberich suggests the awareness levels could be a result of an ability to register changing gas emissions or note tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic field. Red wood ants have special cells called chemoreceptors, which allow them to detect changes in carbon dioxide levels. They also have magnetoreceptor cells, which help them detect electromagnetic fields.
The researchers now plan to continue their studies in areas with more frequent and intense seismic activity.
The study is believed to be the first to have discovered ants' ability to predict earthquakes. Previous research suggests ants can withstand high levels of radioactivity.
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