Infrasound, Elephants and Earthquake Detection

mediareport writes "Science News offers a timely antidote to simplistic mumbo-jumbo about the "mythical power" of animal earthquake detection. Anyone intrigued by reports of possible tsunami-avoidance behavior in Sri Lankan wildlife will enjoy this detailed examination of the latest research into low-frequency sound. Elephant rumblings that produce Rayleigh waves are now under serious study for the first time, while others are designing "highly unusual" experiments to test infrasound sensitivity in humans."

Comments

Elephants

[MBCook]

Elephants know all. There is a story about elephants that would give tourists rides that got nervous that day and then grabbed a few tourists and ran for the hills just before the tsunami.

Weird (and cool) stuff.

Animals don't win Darwins

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there was lots of infra-whats-a-ma-gig going on, but regardless of those factors, what it comes down to is that animals just aren't as stupid as humans.

When confronted with an unusual, confusing situation, they get the fuck out. Whether it was the vibrations, the noise, or the distant sea swell, doesn't matter, they got the fuck out.

Humans who feel planet earth is one great big disney park in which they have the right, if not the obligation, to experience *all* the rides, wander down the quickly receding waterline to check it out.

I suppose it could be valid to think of earth as a disney park, so long as you remember that a large number of the attractions are named "death". If you are too blind to notice that on your way to the shiney new thing..... well.. then I've got a darwin for you.

(this is mainly directed at the forgein tourists on the (now dry) sea bed starely motionlessly at the wave)

Re:Animals don't win Darwins

[dasunt]

I'm sure there was lots of infra-whats-a-ma-gig going on, but regardless of those factors, what it comes down to is that animals just aren't as stupid as humans.

When confronted with an unusual, confusing situation, they get the fuck out. Whether it was the vibrations, the noise, or the distant sea swell, doesn't matter, they got the fuck out.

That's loser speak. ;)

What is better for Og: Avoiding the sharp rock that cut him? Or figuring out how to use that sharp rock to cut others?

Avoid fire like the rest of creation? Or use it to keep him warm and build better spears to kill others?

Og thinking that, like all other predators, a healthy, adult mammoth shouldn't be messed with? Or scream and taunt the mammoth to the point where, in order to escape this mad creature, the mammoth tries to flee, forgetting about the large cliff...

Sure, Og's actions lead to a high deathrate amoung Og's kin. But a few Ogs later, the rest of the clan is much better off.

Re:Animals don't win Darwins

[JanMark]

(Warning: non native writer.) Also, most animals can outrun humans. As I understand it, tsunami's can be outrun if you run over 20km per hour. Clearly a lot of big mamals can run faster than that. So that combined with the fact that animals usually do not go investigate how far the sea retracted, makes (bigger) animals byfar more tsunami restistant than humans. I would like to point out however that humans are very successfull multiplying wise. Does anyone know if we outnumber any mamal population (even before we start destroing their habitats)?

Re:Animals don't win Darwins

[R2.0]

There is a difference between constant, repeatable threats, otherwise known as risk, and random, large scale events.

The first human reaction to danger was always to get out of Dodge. But if the danger was repeatable and comprehendable, it got dealt with. If tsunamis happened on a weekly basis, we'd be surfing on them, not dying by the metric ton.

Re:Animals don't win Darwins

[angel'o'sphere]

This is interesting rated but utter nonsense.

A tsunami has not a speed of merely 20km/h but somewhere between 100km/h and 400km/h.

Granted when it approaches teh coast it slows down massively, thats why the waves are that high.

You can play that on your desk by using a sheet of paper. Move it and stop the front edge with your finger while you continue to move it. It waves up.

The animals did not flew the tsunami, they felt the earthquake and moved BEFORE the tsunami came.

angel'o'sphere

Dead fishes

[helioquake]

I wondered about those fishes that died ashore after the tsunami...

The sound wave indeed propagates through water about 1400km/h, much greater than the propagation speed of tsunami wave at this time (~1000km/h). So the fishes most probably have "heard" the low freqency wave. I'm sure no fish can outswim the tsunami, but I'm a tiny bit surprised to see so many of them got stranged in land.

I know the physics of waves, but have little experience in ocean current under sea. Would tsunami wave actually whirl up and down so fast that deep ocean fishes get dredged up fast and get knocked out before dying ashore? Or do they simply get left behind waves and asphyxiate to death?

Re:Dead fishes

[Meetch]

Hmmm... I would put it down to fish generally not being particularly bright outside of their day-to-day survival instincts, and as they are generally spread out, not needing to respond to such major events as a tsunami for the species to go on. They'd stay in their usual habitat, and if that local habitat goes, then the inhabitants go with it. Occasionally they'd ride a current, especially if given no choice. If they get washed ashore, bad luck.

What I'd be more interested in is if any, and if so how many, larger sea creatures were dumped ashore. (I believe there were whale beachings in the general vicinity within that general window, but AFAIK it's just coincidental).

I'm no marine biologist, so anyone with facts that support or shoot down my ideas are quite welcome to do so.

Could it be ionospheric disturbance?

[helioquake]

Could it be ionospheric disturbance?

There is an on-going research to forecast earthquakes via detecting ionospheric disturbances (can't find a good article now...it has to do with the detection of a very-remote FM radio signal that could only be detected when anomalous disturbance occurs in the ionosphere. An initial finding was done while amateur astronomers were monitoring FM radio signal for meteor detection). Maybe animals can detect minute changes in the terrestrial electro-magnetic field, I wonder?

Re:Could it be ionospheric disturbance?

[mOoZik]

It's possible. Until recently, we didn't know a certain kind of squirrel could communicate in very high frequencies, but alas. But I think the easiest explanation is that the animals could hear the deep rumble of the initial earthquake (inaudible frequencies are created) and decided that something must be up and ran away from the source of the sound.

Feel bad for Pets

[superpulpsicle]

What about the animals that couldn't leave the house. They must be horrified to know something bad is coming and are trapped in their own house.

People are Animals

[radtea]

Humans are animals.

All the people saying "No animals were killed, no animal corpses were found" are ignoring this minor fact.

We're not so very long out of the trees that we have had time to lose any mysterious "sixth sense" that most non-human animals have. The only plausible reason for losing it in such a short time would be if it was strongly selected against.

So anyone who thinks non-human animals have some ability that humans don't--other than the fairly obvious things like a low panic threshold and the ability to run faster--needs to provide some explanation of why we don't have it when 50,000 years ago we were just another moderately successful social primate.

--Tom