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Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

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Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#61

Post by ajkjk »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #19
idlewords wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is loopy because the energy that reaches the earth from even a massive solar flare is orders of magnitude less than the energy released by a major earthquake, and that is orders of magnitudes less than the energies that drive the dynamo in the Earth's core. It's possible for a falling leaf to hit a mountain in just such a way that it dislodges a boulder balanced on top, but you need to tell a pretty compelli…

when people say "orders of magnitude" do they always mean base 10? (i'm thinking of how decibels are a log scale sort of thing wrt power, where "orders of magnitude" used as a cliche probably does not mean what it would be read as.)

I interpret it as saying: exponentially different, where the range in my uncertainty is comparable tonthe effect of the choice of base.

For instance if the range is '3-13' in base 2 it's similar to '1-4' in base 10, but either way I'm making up numbers so who cares what the base is.

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#62

Post by wholinator2 »

olivermarks wrote: post #10
idlewords wrote: post #6

The key claim in the paper ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.12310.pdf ) is that there are detectable changes in cosmic ray activity around 15 days before major seismic events. One posited mechanism is that stuff happens deep in the earth that affects the magnetic field first, and then kicks off some big earthquake. But they don't rule out loopier ideas (like sunspot activity driving changes in the Earth's dynamo that the…

Why is 'sunspot activity driving changes in the Earth's dynamo that then kick off earthquakes' a loopy idea? We are hours away from coronal mass ejection catastrophe right now as solar cycle 20 builds in intensity. It seems reasonable to me that the complex relationship between the moon's gravitational pull and massive sun activity could affect our tiny little planet

What do you mean by, "we are hours away from coronal mass ejection catastrophe right now as solar cycle 20 builds in intensity"?

Because i can't read that as anything other than, we are in solar cycle 20, and it's currently building such that i predict with hours of right now, there will be a coronal mass ejection that will knock out the global power grid. But I've googled and we appear to currently be in solar cycle 25 with solar cycle 20 occurring in the 60s and 70s. Do you mean that a coronal mass ejection event takes hours to get to earth? Then why the "right now"? Does the delay of such events change on a sufficiently short time scale to warrant "right now"?

Nobody else seems confused so maybe I'm an idiot

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#63

Post by zackees »

idlewords wrote: post #6

The key claim in the paper ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.12310.pdf ) is that there are detectable changes in cosmic ray activity around 15 days before major seismic events. One posited mechanism is that stuff happens deep in the earth that affects the magnetic field first, and then kicks off some big earthquake. But they don't rule out loopier ideas (like sunspot activity driving changes in the Earth's dynamo that the…

“Fringe scientists” have been saying that cosmic and solar particles have been causing earthquakes for a long time.

It seems counter intuitive but an analogy is very simple:

A 15 mph breeze will do almost nothing to push a person, but will exert tremendous force on a sail of sufficient size.

Earth, in this analogy, is a really big sail.

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#64

Post by jjk166 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #19
idlewords wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is loopy because the energy that reaches the earth from even a massive solar flare is orders of magnitude less than the energy released by a major earthquake, and that is orders of magnitudes less than the energies that drive the dynamo in the Earth's core. It's possible for a falling leaf to hit a mountain in just such a way that it dislodges a boulder balanced on top, but you need to tell a pretty compelli…

when people say "orders of magnitude" do they always mean base 10? (i'm thinking of how decibels are a log scale sort of thing wrt power, where "orders of magnitude" used as a cliche probably does not mean what it would be read as.)

Base 10 is certainly the default. Decibels are base 10; more specifically a Bel is 1 factor of 10, and a decibel is 1 tenth of that, ie 10^0.1.

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#65

Post by ordu »

dekhn wrote: post #46
phoenixstrike wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good research. >One thing that troubles me in the paper is that the researchers appear to have gone looking for precursor patterns in an ad hoc way, with no physical theory in mind, just trying different binning techniques and delays until they got a signal. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact this is how most science is done. This is pure experiment - try things and see what comes up. You're conflating…

While I don't disagree with your description, there is an awful lot of scientific output which is really just fishing for significance (IE, runnings lots of tests without corrections), publication, claim credit for discovering something, and it never actually gets followed-up on to see if the claim generalizes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging I think probably the most important thing is to get scientists…

This problem is mostly a problem of social sciences. In physics it is important to have a theoretic explanation, if there is no explanation then physicists become excited and start to dig really hard. They value theoretic explanations not correlations. In contrast social sciences lack a good theory, they substitute quality of a theory with a quantity of theories. So it is even important correlations often impossible to explain without resorting to ad hoc theories.

You can see in this article that authors already suggest a theoretic explanation, and I do not doubt that we'll see follow up studies trying to clarify situation.

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#66

Post by ordu »

DangerousPie wrote: post #44
phoenixstrike wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good research. >One thing that troubles me in the paper is that the researchers appear to have gone looking for precursor patterns in an ad hoc way, with no physical theory in mind, just trying different binning techniques and delays until they got a signal. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact this is how most science is done. This is pure experiment - try things and see what comes up. You're conflating…

It's fine if they account for the number of tests they have made when they calculate their significance levels. If they just kept on trying different options until they ended up with p < 0.05 it's almost guaranteed to be noise.

They used p<0.001. It is not social sciences, there anti-noise filters are stricter.

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#67

Post by detrites »

CaveTech wrote: post #55
hammock wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better than anything else we have at the moment

It really isn't? There is no specificity, it also doesn't state that earthquakes _only_ happen after solar activity. So this is equivalent to saying "There could be an earthquake somewhere at any time in the future".

With distributed ray detectors and suitable modeling of inner earth processes, assuming that the premise is correct - seems it may have potential to work?

Ie, maybe able to generate the level of specificity required.

EDIT: Also there aren't that many places on earth at high risk of earthquake that also have poor construction, etc. Meaning any advance warning, that a significant quake may hit somewhere, can trigger "battening down the hatches".

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#68

Post by [deleted] »

EA-3167 wrote: post #52
klipt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine to form a hypothesis from old data ... but it's not a theory yet until that hypothesis is challenged by (and isn't falsified by) future data :-)

This is doubly true when we're talking about predicting earthquakes, a practice that has had no successes and a LOT of notable failures.

[deleted]

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#69

Post by sneak »

> The main idea here is the observation that eddy currents in the liquid core of our planet are responsible for generating the Earth's magnetic field. This field deflects the paths of charged particles of primary cosmic radiation. Thus, if large earthquakes were associated with disturbances in the flows of matter that drive the Earth's dynamo, these disturbances would alter the magnetic field, which in turn would affect the tracks of the particles of primary cosmic radiation in a manner that depends on the dynamics of the disturbances inside our planet. As a result, ground-based detectors should see some changes in the numbers of secondary cosmic ray particles detected.

Re: Surges of cosmic radiation from space directly linked to earthquakes

#70

Post by vanderZwan »

zackees wrote: post #63
idlewords wrote: post #6

The key claim in the paper ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.12310.pdf ) is that there are detectable changes in cosmic ray activity around 15 days before major seismic events. One posited mechanism is that stuff happens deep in the earth that affects the magnetic field first, and then kicks off some big earthquake. But they don't rule out loopier ideas (like sunspot activity driving changes in the Earth's dynamo that the…

“Fringe scientists” have been saying that cosmic and solar particles have been causing earthquakes for a long time. It seems counter intuitive but an analogy is very simple: A 15 mph breeze will do almost nothing to push a person, but will exert tremendous force on a sail of sufficient size. Earth, in this analogy, is a really big sail.

The counter-argument is equally simple: a sail is a surface. The earth is a sphere. A sphere made of solid rock the size of a sail will be even less moved by a 15 mph breeze than this hypothetical person.
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