Earthquake Precursors

[FrankM]

Almost two years ago I started a post about Earth conductivity and it was about a year ago the last item was posted. While searching for unrelated material today I found an article by a NASA researcher that summed up what had been found about Earthquake precursors, and a significant portion of the articles discusses how deep Earth pressures effect conductivity.

 

The article sums up what was known about 2 1/2 years ago, but the article includes in one place material that has not been readily available or had to be extracted from multiple reports.

 

The following is the abstract.

 

http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v17n1a3.php

 

The full pdf article (555kb) is at -

 

http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/pdf/17.1_freund.pdf

[Turtle]

____Thanks Frank; I am part way through your great article. Sounds like the kind of fractal approach to geology I reccomend.

:hyper:

 

Addendum: From Frank's article:

Unfortunately, neither piezoelectricity

nor streaming potentials stand up to scrutiny, unless boundary conditions are

allowed to exist, which are generally thought to be quite unrealistic.

___I hold that fractals realistically describe the required boundary conditions.

[Turtle]

___Geologist Jim Berkland - at http://www.syzygyjob.com/ - regularly keeps records on animal behavior in regard to quakes; he uses missing pet adds in the newspapers. He is also a strong propenent of Lunar tides as a triggering mechanism for earthquakes & he makes predictions regularly on this basis.

 

From the article again:

Air-borne ions have reportedly a pronounced biological impact on humans

and animals (Charry, 1984; Krueger & Reed, 1976). Exposure to negative ions

is generally perceived by humans as pleasant, may enhance the cognitive

performance, and has overall beneficial health effects (Baron, 1987). By

contrast, positive ions elicit adverse reactions including headaches, nausea,

depression, and overall ill feelings. Adiabatically compressed, katabatic winds,

blowing downslope, are known in the Alps as Foehn, in the Rocky Mountains as

Chinook, and in Southern California as Santa Ana (Byers, 1974). Such winds are

laden with positive ions and are reputably the source of increased levels of

tension and irritability in the general population.

Combining these known adverse physiological effects of positive ions on

humans with the build-up of positive surface charges at the Earth’s surface, due

to the arrival of p-hole charge clouds, suggests that animals may react to the

positive ions that are most likely emitted from the ground. This would provide

a more consistent, and probably testable, explanation for the reported unusual

animal behavior prior to large earthquakes than the alleged sensitivity of animals

64 F. T. Freund

to minute vibrations or very low-intensity EM emission, which seem not to be

supported by other evidence.[/Quote]

 

___In posts #2, #3, #22, & #23 of this thread I talk about my ability to sense/feel earthquakes:

http://hypography.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1075&page=1&pp=10&highlight=earthquakes

___This link refers to Charlotte King's similar ability & the scientific study of that ability.

http://www.viser.net/~charking/

[FrankM]

The most frustrating thing about reports on "unusual phenomena", such as earthquake lights and peoples feelings of "unease" before earthquakes is the attempt to push the explanations into paranormal terms as being unexplainable. There is a logical physical explanation for everything that happens, we just haven't developed the instruments (or are not using existing ones correctly) to detect the causative factors independent of "human feelings" and eyeball detection.

 

When I was researching "earth conductivity", I found articles about how cows would react to potential differences across the ground where they were standing, this caused by leakage in dairies electrical systems. The earth potentials created by earthquakes are doing the same thing, thus causing animals (which are in close contact with the ground) to be electrically irritated. You would think it would be easy to measure the in-ground potential created by the moving "charge sheet" that is generated before and at the time of an earthquake, but seismologists in general are still stuck in the pressure strain gauge world of earthquake measurement.

[Turtle]

___I like your stuff Frank; you have set me thinking differently for sure. The lab experiments described in the article(s) on rock conductivity look very promising, particularly in regard to recognizing the surfaces of minerals as a main current conductor.

___On animals & electric current, I recall an encyclopedia article long ago describing how fish in tanks align their back-&-forth swim pattern in relation to an electric current. The experiment described using a small battery & placing a lead from each pole in opposite sides of the tank & then shifting their orientaion; the fishs' back-&forth pattern then shifts orientation to remain parallel to the current flow in water between the electrodes.

___Just for fun I have in mind to put a meter on my skywire (described in the Birding thread) & see if any current is flowing in it. Any suggestions for simple home-built apparatus for detecting some of this Earth current? Good stuff.

:hyper:

[FrankM]

___Just for fun I have in mind to put a meter on my skywire (described in the Birding thread) & see if any current is flowing in it. Any suggestions for simple home-built apparatus for detecting some of this Earth current? Good stuff.

:hyper:

 

Tried to find what you were referring to about the "skywire" but I didn't find it with my slow modem page loading. If you look up earth air potential, it will note that the average clear air potential at the Earth's surface is 100 v/meter. Unless you have a particularly sensitive meter the loading would "ground" the potential generated in a short wire.

 

Those that are experimenting with earthquake detection are using very large inductance coils to detect the very very low frequency emissions that accompany an earthquake generated current flow. Yahoo has a ULF/ELF group which has files identifying equipment needed for that type of detection.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ulfelf/

One will need a data logger of some type as the equipment has to run unattended until something happens. To really do it correctly requires a lot of space and one should be well removed from other sources of spurious electromagnetic emissions.

[Turtle]

___Thanks Frank. My wire is twisted steel cable about 60 feet long; just for kicks I plan to put the meter on it & see what is the case with it.

___Frank, what do you know about what is called 'Electric Universe Theory'? (Anyone else for that matter). I have listened to one guy in particular named James McCanney talk about charges in space in regard to comets, Earth, & all space bodies. Here is his site:

http://www.jmccanneyscience.com/

___All charged up,

Turtle :hyper:

[FrankM]

The McCanney site is one of those that produces eye strain with all the colors and centered bold text, and is a hodgepodge of subjects, lacks focus.

 

The term "Electric Universe" is used for a variety electric subjects, the least being how it is associated with planetary bodies. I have searched on that term earlier trying to find sites that present relevant material on the "electrical nature" of our planetary system. The serious researchers have to get around the scientific establishments contention that we are just a planetary object that has no "charge" connection with anything else in the Sun's heliosphere.

 

Those who say we are isolated in space (whatever that is) forget that space has permittivity and permeability, the properties that we exploit to make capacitors. A recent article points to an effort to understand why lightning bolts are shown going outward from the Earth.

 

European space scientists are planning to put special cameras on board the International Space Station (ISS) to take a closer look at the phenomenon of giant lightning.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/04/seeking_sprites/

 

Lightning in general is caused by unbalanced charge distribution and when the potential difference between two points becomes greater than the insulating properties of the medium between the charge difference, breakdown occurs, and the electric exchange attempts to equalize the difference. It is obvious that charge differences in the atmosphere can exist in many different places at the same time.

 

The existence of SPRITES, JETS AND ELVES suggests the Earth's ionospheric shell presents a varying charge difference with that of its "space" environment, and these differing types of electric discharge are the visual evidence of localized areas attempting to reach a potential balance with "whatever".

 

The following site is one that I call focused, it presents information on one particular subject that you might find interesting, and it infers an electric nature of the sun.

 

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/

[FrankM]

I received a response from an academic source identifying a thesis that dealt with the methodologies involved in testing rock under pressure for electrical/current output, that which was reported in the pdf article noted in my original post on this subject.

 

http://professionalmasters.science.orst.edu/Studentwebs/Mellon/Thesis01Jun04Final.pdf

 

Maybe twenty years from now this type of material will be taught in the introductory freshmen courses in geophysics, earth sciences and seismology.

 

You really have to think about the "mind set" that exists in the scientific community that refused to acknowledge the existence of "visual" earthquake precursors that people have reported for centuries. Since scientists couldn't replicate the effect(s) they dismissed them as illusions or emotional responses of "scientifically untrained" individuals that were being jostled during periods of earth movement.

 

If you read the Freund article, scientists had been detecting electrical/current outputs from rocks under pressure for many years, but they concluded it was "surface" contamination. This conclusion was passed into the academic system and it "infected" generations of scientists, and they couldn't get past that obstacle (it was taught as a fact and no one was able to challenge it - they didn't have the background to do so).