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Could Electron Counts Detect Major Earthquakes?
hcs_$reboot writes "According to a Japanese researcher, the electron count escalation high in the atmosphere could indicate that a major earthquake is going to happen within 30~40 minutes. That phenomenon was observed before three earthquakes since 2004. If confirmed, the earthquake detection system could save thousands of lives."
I have never been in an earthquake, but I have been in numerous tornadoes. Back in the 60's we did not have alarms. Now that we have them, it is useful to be woken at night to head down. The tornado warnings HAS saved a number of lives. I can only imagine that the same would be true of Earthquakes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hopefully it is 100% reliable.
At least in Italy.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
“I think it’s worthwhile to document it like this, to see what will happen with the next event,” Kanamori says, “but I can’t be completely convinced.”
I can't seem to access the paper but can anyone tell me how long of a time range was surveyed and how many times the electron counts spiked when there wasn't a massive earthquake?
Granted, it still could be useful to use as a percentage or forecast if intersecting this statistic with other metrics.
My work here is dung.
TFA says:
Is GPS satellite distribution not uniform-on-average across the globe? Sombody can 'splains?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That phenomenon was observed before three earthquakes since 2004.
Certainly this opens an argument for more research in this area. However how about actually figuring out if it's not just co-incidence before talking about building "detection systems" and putting numbers to the "lives saved". Otherwise you're going to get all geologists arrested and extradited to Italy to face manslaughter charges.
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Warnings would allow people to stop trains, get off of bridges, lock cabinets etc....
Would you rather be on a train going 60 miles/hour which may derail in an earthquake, or one that is stopped/slowed down? Would you rather be on a bridge or on land? There are a lot of things you can do to get ready for an earthquake.
Evacuate cities?
People need to get out of buildings and away from things that can fall on them when there's a major earthquake.
Here most people die when they're crushed under concrete and other building materials (stone, bricks, etc.) in poorly constructed homes.
Something that says an earthquake is imminent would definitely help.
Banu
Natural earthquakes don't change the atmosphere, HAARP made do. It's interesting to note that Russia reported that they detected this attack against Japan 8 hours before the earthquake struck using their HAARP detection system a few days after it happened.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
The standard earthquake warning is animals acting weird - "Wow, my cat started acting really weird before that earthquake!" "Your cat also acts weird when there isn't an earthquake."
Now we've got to worry every time our electrons start acting weird?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Around here you're best off in one of the modern high rises. Just make sure that you're not next to one as panes of glass can fall. I think most of those will happily handle an 8.0+ earthquake
OTOH, outside you have falling glass and electric lines to worry about.
Evacuate cities?
People need to get out of buildings and away from things that can fall on them when there's a major earthquake.
Here most people die when they're crushed under concrete and other building materials (stone, bricks, etc.) in poorly constructed homes.
Something that says an earthquake is imminent would definitely help.
Not so easy. Depends on your building. And the quake. If you are in a quake resistant building, you're better off staying inside and avoiding debris like the 50 stories of glass windows that are about to cascade down on you. If you are in an old masonry building, it might make sense. If you are in a fairly undeveloped area without 50 stories of glass windows, perhaps outside would be good. If you're on the coast, perhaps not.
However, 30 minutes of warning does give you more options to think about. You could determine ahead of time your strategy. You might build an 'earthquake bunker' inside a building. Unfortunately, from TFA, even if this phenomena is true, the current GPS constellation isn't set up to measure this in real time. But since earthquake prediction is one of the Holy Grail's of science, it deserves to be studied some more. Perhaps you could build local electron sensors ... or whatever.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The way i have understood this is that when far under the earths crust some rocks are crushed by the stress. The rocks being crushed caused the electron cloud. Russia noted this earlier this year saying the had an cloud over Kentucky. Nothing ever happened.
Well, for earthquakes near major infrastructure like, say, nuclear reactor, they could initiate a reactor shutdown before the earthquake starts. In places like California with the double-decker freeways, you may be able to get motorists at least off the bridges onto more solid land. You could have trains come to a halt, too. And, you could get emergency personnel paged and at the ready.
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It has been suspected for quite a long time that there may be a detectable piezoelectric effect before major earthquakes caused by the changing stresses in rocks.
Time will tell if this is the much anticipated cause of the effect that the researcher has found.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
Not to be overly cynical but 30-40 minutes to brace for a major earthquake? While I see this being helpful I can't see saving thousands of lives - at least not in the immediate future.
Before the SCADA control system drops due to destruction, you can slam all natural gas valves shut. Well, at half an hour, you could darn near depressurize the system... Instantly, no deaths due to fire.
Also its practically impossible to be crushed under a building by an earthquake, if you're outside and "far away" from buildings. Yet another reason it sucks to live in an urban area, but for the rest of us...
Finally its difficult to be crushed under a bridge or trapped in a subway tunnel if they've been evacuated...
I would hazard a guess that you could reduce fatalities by about 75% to 90% with this system... until false alarms make it ignored, etc.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Weather studies have shown that above 80% false positives (i.e. 4 out 5 dont occur), almost everyone ignores warnings. These scientist would need to track electron levels for a large number of recent quakes to see if this is the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances
Anyone know EM wave physics well? Would the published levels of changing ionospheric charge modify the Schumann resonance enough to allow for remote (global?) detection by watching the ~7Hz wavebands?
and earthquakes. Either concentration in atmosphere or ground water. Just googling RADON and earthquakes results in a good number of hits.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It was because someone was activating HAARP (Conspiracy theory alert)
Given the electrons show up 30 minutes BEFORE an earthquake, isn't it obvious that earthquakes are caused by electrons in the atmosphere? Case closed.
I am glad to see that I was not the only one to think of HAARP when I heard this, though I must say after looking into it I still don't see how something like HAARP heating the ionosphere could really trigger an earthquake. On the other hand I don't see how the Earth could be making the ionosphere fluctuate so much without at least the magnetic field going haywire. Bloody interesting to know what Phenomena would cause that regardless.
I art more snarky, and terse than thou. I art Slashdot!
People will go outside, turn off there case and then stay outside. Or get into a vehicle and wait. Far safer then inside a building.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Clearly this is some James Bond villain's satellite weapon firing electrons at the Earth's crust to cause an earthquake. That's why the electrons show up in the atmosphere first, then the earthquake happens after. I think we need to investigate large construction company CEOs, one of them clearly has a doomsday machine.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Weird electrons might be positive..
You don't feel an (at least 7.5) earthquake while driving, so unless the coming one is really strong, imho it doesn't make any sense to stop the train.
One way or another, you'd feel differently about driving if they road suddenly wasn't there. Also, I'm sure that even in CA, trains stop asap in an earthquake.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Curiously, the exact same idea has been used to detect (ok, after the fact) nuclear tests. For nuclear tests, the mechanism of the ionosphere disturbance makes a little more sense than for an earthquake.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
...but is this coincidental or scientifically-correct information? How often do the electron counts rise when there are no earthquake events? How often do the electron counts rise when there is an earthquake in an area on the globe nowhere near yours? Does the electron rate rise because of an impending earthquake or does an electron rise show that something is happening with the sun or other astral body that is sometimes-yes and sometimes-no with an earthquake trigger?
Oh, wait, it says in the article that they are already questioning this.
*shakes head*
Thousands of lives are saved by the 3-5 minute warnings given for tornadoes that affect a much smaller area. 30 minutes is enough to get people off elevated roadways (and stopped on the side of all the other roads), stop the trains, turn off the gas lines, fill emergency water supplies, get to the safest room of the house, and contact family to communicate a plan for afterwards. 30 minutes warning for a major disaster is a freaking eternity, you can't stop the building toppling if they're going to topple, but you can prevent a host of other causes of injury. An accurate 5 minute warning would save hundreds of lives, 30 minutes would cut fatalities to a fraction their current levels.
That would be the Honjo tragedy (see p. 8 of this pdf for gory details) of the Great Kanto Earthquake that demolished Tokyo at two minutes before noon on 1 September 1923.
The Honjo tragedy was just the best-known of many sub-firestorms in open fields that developed as the city built largely of wood, and filled with people cooking lunch on open-fire hibachis, got hit by a magnitude 7.9 - 8.2 (depending on the source) earthquake. More than 100,000 people died in the earthquake and resulting fire and, of these, between 30,000 and 40,000 died at Honjo. People in open fields miles from the flames died of hypoxia or were baked by superheated, oxygen-poor air; people in open fields closer to the flames died from burning, falling debris. It was about as horrible as horrible gets, and we may all hope that, however we go, it won't be like that.
As an aside, it is difficult to overestimate the sociological and political effects of this earthquake. For example, strife between ethnic Koreans and Japanese led to the massacre of thousands of Koreans and other ethnic minorities following the earthquake and firestorm. After the event, watch our for your fellow survivors, too.
It's enough time to clear bridges, multi-level freeways and things like that. Or for people to get out of poorly constructed buildings.
I and many others i'm sure, disagree... lesser earthquakes feel like a flat tire, that's why many might THINK "you don't feel anything less than a 7.5." It also depends on the type of quake.
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
Not to be overly cynical but 30-40 minutes to brace for a major earthquake?
Are you kidding? That's enough time to save perhaps 9 out of 10 people in an earthquake. It's more than enough time to evacuate all but the largest buildings. It's more than enough time to get people away from bodies of water and the possibility of tsunami. You can clear bridges and underpasses, anywhere that has an elevated chance of killing people. It's enough time to shut down gas mains and operating tables. You don't need to get people out of the city, you just need to get them out of the more dangerous situations. And just shutting down utilities would greatly reduce the risk of fires.
The problem as I see is a high false positive rate. If there are a lot of false alarms, then people won't respond to a real danger.
However, since you can't exactly evacuate a major city in that time - could a "earthquake shelter" be created?
Middle of a parking lot away from buildings, for example, would be an adequate earthquake shelter. In a dense city, I'd recommend packing people into "green spaces" and other open places away from buildings. Subways and other underground structures shouldn't be too bad either. They are. all else being equal, somewhat more resistant to earthquakes than surface buildings.
I am guessing by this response that you have never lived in an urban area. There's no way you are going to be able to do much of anything useful (except maybe your natural gas shut off scenario) in 30-40 minutes. Municipalities can't react that fast nor can anyone really escape that fast. You cannot shutdown and evacuate an entire subway system that quickly. You couldn't even deploy police to assist with that in enough time.
I don't see this. You're not trying to move people out of the city, but merely out of the building or into a relatively safe spot in the building. It's not enough time to empty a big skyscraper, but most buildings aren't that big.
Then they're called positrons.
Well put!
My initial thought was trying to clear out a place like NYC out of the way of all the falling debris, but protecting populations from our infrastructure like you mention (including natural gas as someone else mentioned) seems more reasonable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apple_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)
On stardate 3715.3, the starship USS Enterprise arrives at Gamma Trianguli VI, a planet that appears to be a tropical paradise with very rich natural resources. Captain James T. Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Ensign Chekov, and Mr. Spock, along with five other survey personnel (Hendorff, Kaplan, Landon, Mallory, and Marple, all of whom are killed except Landon), beam down to the surface to have a look and to make contact with the natives.
They discover a world of poison dart-shooting plants, unstable explosive rocks, and bizarre lightning storms that appear out of cloudless skies. Hendorff is shot by a plant and is killed, and then Spock is hit by another plant's darts when he steps to block them from hitting the Captain. Spock is stunned, and McCoy rushes over to assist, injecting him with Masiform-D serum to counteract the poison. Spock is more resilient to the poison and later recovers on his own.
Realizing there is too much danger, Kirk orders an immediate beam-out, however Mr. Scott reports that the ship's power systems are being drained by an unknown energy field emanating from the planet – they're losing potency in the anti-matter. The Enterprise's transporters don't have enough power to beam anyone back. As if this weren't enough, Spock reports that someone is hiding in the bushes, watching them.
A few minutes later, the sky clouds up and a bolt of lightning snakes down and hits Kaplan, killing him. Shortly thereafter, Mallory calls in on his communicator. He's near the village and says it's "primitive, strictly tribal," but that there's something else of great interest. His communicator fails and he runs back to the landing party to report, but trips over an explosive rock and is killed.
Spock notices they are being watched again. Kirk arranges to decoy and ambush their "observer", finding it to be a shy and frightened primitive humanoid who wears glitter and colorful paints on his skin. Kirk promises not to hurt the curious man and holds him for questioning. The man calms down and identifies himself as Akuta (Keith Andes), chief of the people known as the "Feeders of Vaal". Spock notices that Akuta appears to be in some kind of communication with someone, and points out the small antennae on Akuta's head. Akuta explains that those are his "ears for Vaal", enabling him to interpret Vaal's commands for the people, and that he is "the eyes and the ears of Vaal", who is their god.
Meanwhile, Mr. Scott calls down to inform Kirk that the Enterprise is being pulled down from orbit around the planet by some kind of tractor beam and is unable to break away. Kirk asks Akuta about "Vaal", and requests to be taken to meet him. Akuta agrees and leads the landing team to a large stone dragon head carved into the side of a hill. Akuta points to the structure and indicates that it is Vaal.
The dragon's mouth, with steps cut into a tongue, appears as a kind of doorway. Spock's tricorder indicates that it leads underground. The structure is also protected by a powerful force field. The temple appears to be some type of sophisticated computer, possibly built by an ancient civilization, with a rudimentary artificial intelligence, a thirty-foot force field, and emanating great power. Spock also concludes that it may be the source of the energy draining field that is affecting the Enterprise.
Akuta says Vaal is "sleeping", but will awake "hungry" and might speak to the landing party at that time. He then leads the party to meet his people. They appear as young men and women, but all have a curious, childlike mentality. Kirk points out that the tribe doesn't seem to have any children and asks Akuta why. Akuta doesn't know what a child is, saying that Vaal has forbidden love and copulation, and provides them with "replacements" as they are needed. McCoy scans the tribe and is shocked when he discovers they are ageless and all in perfect
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
People have covered most of the important points so far, but I'd say another great feature is waking people up in the first place. Here in Japan, the Kobe earthquake in the mid 1990s struck just before 6AM, when many people are still sleeping. Friends have told me that it was not a very fun thing to wake up to. Better to be mentally prepared than in a panicked sleep-fog.
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." -Indiana Jones