There was a recent article on predicting earthquakes with GPS signals..
Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#22Hasn'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.
>dogs and birds react before an earthquake
Earthquakes have what are called primary (P) and secondary (S) waves. The primary is a sharp high frequency wave and the secondary waves are a lower frequency rumble that you feel as the earthquake. The P wave propagates faster so if you're distant from the epicenter the P waves might arrive fractions of a minutes earlier. That's what you see in videos of dogs jumping up and running off or birds taking flight "right before" the earthquake.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#23Hasn'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.
>dogs and birds react before an earthquake Earthquakes have what are called primary (P) and secondary (S) waves. The primary is a sharp high frequency wave and the secondary waves are a lower frequency rumble that you feel as the earthquake. The P wave propagates faster so if you're distant from the epicenter the P waves might arrive fractions of a minutes earlier. That's what you see in videos of dogs jumping up and…
That explains detection seconds before the main tremors, but there's some evidence that some animals change their behavior hours before the actual earthquake, before there are any measurable tremors, so there might be other mechanisms at play.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-...
Your link fails to establish that. The main problem with animal behavior surveys is that they tend to report good results when you start with a known earthquake, and then look backwards to find unusual animal behavior before the earthquake. If you instead try to define objective criteria on animal behavior and then use that as a signal to predict earthquakes, the quality of animal behavior as a predictor turns to crap. In a nutshell, unusual animal behavior precedes most earthquakes... and many more events that turn out not to be earthquakes!
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#25The 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 transfo…
Volcanic eruptions are predictable
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#26There's a great set of research coming from Alexis Cartwright Taylor's lab showing that it's quite possible that large fractions of fracture mechanics information is not transmitted acoustically. For example grain boundary rotations and change the stress field without releasing acoustic energy as they are typically elastic. This would indicate that even the very idea of what seismology has been the last 60 years, acoustic detection of earthquakes, does not produce enough information for understanding the earthquake process and thus prediction would not be possible using only data from seismometers. Of course, Gutenberg Richter b value people will tell you that's not true. But they seem to be a dying breed.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-...
Your link fails to establish that. The main problem with animal behavior surveys is that they tend to report good results when you start with a known earthquake, and then look backwards to find unusual animal behavior before the earthquake. If you instead try to define objective criteria on animal behavior and then use that as a signal to predict earthquakes, the quality of animal behavior as a predictor turns to cra…
That's a fair point; a detector that reliably detects impeding once-in-a-century strong earthquakes as well as every wolf or bear wandering too close to some herd of goats is probably not that useful.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-...
Your link fails to establish that. The main problem with animal behavior surveys is that they tend to report good results when you start with a known earthquake, and then look backwards to find unusual animal behavior before the earthquake. If you instead try to define objective criteria on animal behavior and then use that as a signal to predict earthquakes, the quality of animal behavior as a predictor turns to cra…
You speak of general animal behavior but Where are you basing this on? Is there a study you can link to related to the topic in discussion?
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#29What 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(:
Releasing the tension in small quakes every few months must be preferable to letting it pile up and release every few decades.
Re: Can Earthquakes Be Predicted? (2022)
#30What 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(:
Also who would cover the legal liability in case of damages?