BEER-SHEVA, Israel (Press Release) –Earthquake warning and forecasting systems used worldwide are ineffective,according to new research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the Sami Shamoon College of Engineering Studies.Their research shows that electromagnetic radiation measurement would be a better predictor,providing hours, or even days, warning before an earthquake.
According to the study published in the May print issue of Geological Magazine, hundreds of millions of dollars invested to measure seismic radiation to predict earthquakes have been wasted because the radiation before an earthquake is absorbed in the earth’s rock and cannot be measured.
Contrary to prevailing assumptions, future earthquakes cannot reliably be predicted by seismic radiation because the earth absorbs the high frequency seismic waves, which are emitted in the early, nucleation stages of the event.Instead,researchers showed that measuring high frequencies of electromagnetic radiation during these early stages is more effective.
The study, conducted by Prof. (emeritus) Avinoam Rabinovitch of the BGU Department of Physics, Prof. (emeritus) Dov Bahat of the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at BGU, and Dr. Vladimir Frid of the Department of Structural Engineering at the Sami Shimon Academic College of Engineering, advances their previous research which takes into account the distinctive shape of electromagnetic pulses to identify early warning signals.
“An earthquake forecast should identify the first stages of earthquake development, which are the nucleation stages,characterized by micro-cracks that cause high-frequency radiation, a frequency that decreases with fracture elongation,” says Prof. Rabinovitch. “Electromagnetic radiation at this stage is absorbed much less in rock and therefore would be more effective to measure.”
“Seismic warning systems, such as those currently installed in Israel, act more like an alarm that alerts us to a missile that has already been launched,” the researchers say. “We propose developing an electromagnetic radiation system that can measure the radiation from the earthquake’s nucleation processes and potentially predict an earthquake an adequate time before the catastrophe.”
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Preceding provided by Ben Gurion University