The system is chaotic so even in principle it’s likely impossible.
Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
11–20 of 49 posts
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#12Earthquakes might not be able to be predicted accurately, but some recent research 'claims' there some physical signs that can comes before earthquake comes. E.g. : helium and radon gas. Research related to 2011 Tohoku earthquake also reported that there is some magnetic anomaly before the earthquake.
People that noticed these anomaly, however, cannot correlates these anomaly to the necessary parameter that is really required for true earthquake prediction: Magnitude, Location, and Time. Without saying what is the magnitude and location, you cannot estimate the earthquake damage. Time limit is also important.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#13What if earthquakes could not only be predicted, but manually triggered? Imagine the warfare implications.
Fracking does this on a small scale. I had an excellent geology professor, Donald Prothero, who argued manually triggering earthquakes could be a much better idea in high tension areas than waiting for them to happen organically, as we could prepare, and the triggered earthquakes wouldn’t be as bad as waiting for them to happen. But the paperwork would be a nightmare(:
Earthquakes triggered by fracking is usually small and non-damaging (less than M5, mostly M4 or M3).
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#14What if earthquakes could not only be predicted, but manually triggered? Imagine the warfare implications.
The Core - Best b-grade disaster movie of recent times!
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#15Hasn't it been known for a while that dogs and birds react before an earthquake?
They must be sensing something we can make an artificial sensor for.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#16Hasn't it been known for a while that dogs and birds react before an earthquake? They must be sensing something we can make an artificial sensor for.
>known for a while dogs and birds react before an earthquake
I think I've read somewhere that the ancient Greeks were speculating on this...
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#17Hasn't it been known for a while that dogs and birds react before an earthquake? They must be sensing something we can make an artificial sensor for.
No, that's a myth.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fracking does this on a small scale. I had an excellent geology professor, Donald Prothero, who argued manually triggering earthquakes could be a much better idea in high tension areas than waiting for them to happen organically, as we could prepare, and the triggered earthquakes wouldn’t be as bad as waiting for them to happen. But the paperwork would be a nightmare(:
Earthquakes triggered by fracking is usually small and non-damaging (less than M5, mostly M4 or M3).
It's actually impossible to know for certain how much and what size of land you're destabilizing. Duration of expected destabilization is also varying I guess and at least 1 year.
Oklahoma, 2012 seismic sequence in Emilia (Italy), Sichuan Basin are already examples that triggered protests and call for investigations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Northern_Italy_earthquake...
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2187718/chin...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1225942
An example study for US that states the activity is exponantially linked to fracking sites: https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10233410
> "Exponential relationship between the total number of earthquakes and the number of wells in the Texas during the study period 1998–2018 with correlation R2=0.726."
In the tragic earthquakes of 2023 in Turkey, this relationship was again discussed in mainstream media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkey%E2%80%93Syria_eart...
It's not fracking itself but actually wastewater injection has a bigger influence in triggering bigger earthquakes according to what I've read. Moreover, it's also known that dams have a significant impact:
https://archive.internationalrivers.org/blogs/227/china-eart....
> "The devastating earthquake in Sichuan, which took at least 69,000 lives in May 2008, may have been unleashed by the huge Zipingpu Dam. New scientific evidence suggests that the filling of the Zipingpu reservoir may have activated a dormant fault line near the dam site."
Shallow faults are definitely activated. Probability of deep faults activated through full destabilization of a region? Unknown for now.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#19The system is chaotic so even in principle it’s likely impossible.
Then again, groups of animals seem to be able to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions hours ahead of time: https://www.icarus.mpg.de/11706/a-four-legged-early-warning-...
There are also reports of pretty interesting/odd electromagnetic phenomena reaching up to the ionosphere, which might be what animals are ultimately sensing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light
A lot of these videos might be transformers blowing out or swinging power lines touching, but given the ubiquity of surveillance cameras and dashcams, we're fortunately getting more and more data. If there's something there that can be used for prediction better than seconds ahead of the earthquake, the value would obviously be immense.
It might of course be that animals are reacting to something else, like sulphuric gases being released from the ground, infrasound of early earthquake acitivty etc. – we just don't know enough about it yet, but the fact that there's correlation between animal behavior and seismic activity seems worth studying.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#20Hasn't it been known for a while that dogs and birds react before an earthquake? They must be sensing something we can make an artificial sensor for.
No, that's a myth.
Groups of some animals can predict seismic activity at a rate better than random chance: https://www.icarus.mpg.de/11706/a-four-legged-early-warning-...