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Russian scientists close to solving earthquake riddle
Published: 15 January, 2010, 06:36
Edited: 26 January, 2010, 10:35
Current Earthquake Information. Information from IRIS: IRIS Seismic Monitor (iris.edu)
(10.9Mb) embed videoTAGS: Natural disasters, Russia, SciTech
Despite scientific progress, current technology is unable to provide forewarning of disasters like the one that struck Haiti this week. Still, researchers in Russia are working hard to attain this elusive goal.
The tragic consequences of the earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday have shocked the world. Two days later, the streets of the devastated capital are strewn with bodies while crowds of the injured still await urgent treatment.
“No reliable precursor exists to tell whether there will be an earthquake or not and when,” said seismologist Gennady Sobolev. “Only some possible assessments could be made, with such probability the earthquake will happen in such or such period, in such or such place. There is no reliable earthquake prediction method.”
Some specialists say the phenomenon of earthquakes has not been sufficiently researched. From school geography class students remember that earthquakes are caused by shifting geological fault lines, but exactly why this happens, and what goes on deep below the surface – was never fully explained. This is what scientists are still trying to learn.
At Russia’s Institute of the Earth Physics, for more than half a century scientists have been analyzing the genesis of earthquakes by recreating them in a laboratory.
Special machine at the Institute can show what happens to the earth’s plates several kilometers below the surface during the natural disaster. But perhaps what’s even more important is that this technology allows us to learn what happens before the earthquake hits.
Once a sample is put under pressure it can tell a lot. Every second, about 20 sensors register all changes occurring inside. Pressure, temperature, electromagnetic and geophysical changes, and even sounds, could be useful indicators.
“Before the main fault movement, many small clefts appear and this produces a sound,” said Sergey Anisimov of the Institute. “As soon as we are able to register this sound, to understand what kind of sound indicates the onset of an earthquake, we will be able to forecast or even prevent disasters.”
Day by day, unique research edges Russian scientists closer to this crucial goal. If they manage to crack the riddle, many lives could be saved.
14.01.2010, 13:07
1 comment
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All you need to do is listen to the song of the planet and of course accurately map out the planets substrata. A stresses alter the loads on fault structures, so the sounds travelling through those fault structures is altered (not sound generated at the fault). Deeply buried microphones measuring and comparing background noise and it's fluctuation, together with a map detailing types of material with estimated load failure points. A whole lot of microphones over a large area with computer driven cross comparison statistical analysis. The more quakes in the area the more accurate it will become.
Interesting. In the US coverage of the Haiti disaster it was mentioned that there is a 99.7% chance of the San Andreas fault in Southern California producing an Earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater within the next 30 years. This would do substantial damage to several US cities, including to some extent or another the major coastal ones like San Fransisco and LA. If this research allowed the timing of the quake to be determined with adequate enough precision to prompt an evacuation we would so to speak be in your debt.
The reason there is this big broth of ongoing earthquake is the earth is spinning faster when the oil and coal and gas has been burnt the faster the pollution grows the faster the earth spins creating a build up of water that can not by pass the continents fast enough forcing weighted pressure on the earths plats.