The Results of Earthquake predictions over the years have been disappointing. Often there are are false alarms which results in unwanted panic & epidemic.
What causes Earthquakes?
Earth’s hemisphere has multiple layers from the outer surface to deep down inside core. The Outer layer is broken into pieces called Tectonic plates. Each of these plates is about 100km thick and they are constantly floating towards or from each other. These plates have a very low velocity say of the order of 10cm per year.
When these plates collide with each other, and rocks break which causes sudden vibrations which are popularly known as Earthquake. There are other types of Earthquakes that do not occur on plate margines called Intraplate eathquake. Other variants include Volcanic Earthquakes, Foreshocks and Aftershocks.
Most earthquakes occur on the boundaries between plates, where one plate is forced under another such as happens off island chains such as Japan, Indonesia or the Solomon Islands, or past another as occurs in California and New Zealand.
Why Earthquakes are Hard to Predict, Forecast?
Scientists have created detailed models of earthquake and had been studying them for centuries, they are still very unpredictable. Truth is no one till date has full understanding of the conditions that cause it: rock materials, minerals, fluids, pressures.
Most observations of Earthquakes are always viewed indirectly through lens of seismic waves, surface faulting and surface deformation. To understand, predict and forecast Earthquakes, we will need to know what happens just before and during start of an earthquake and whether we can observe a particular parameter and conclude Earthquake is immitent. So far, none of those parameters are known. All Scientists do is look at Seismic wave patterns and some inplausable change in behavior is often thought to be a Forecast of Earthquake depending upon rough estimation of their source. But history is the proof, this is no accurate, most of the time.
Pinpointing the exact time and size of an earthquake is currently impossible, however, scientists can estimate the probability of an earthquake occurring in a region or on a fault over a span of decades. Scientists calculate how much slip is used up in each earthquake, and thus how often earthquakes must occur, on average, to keep up with the long-term slip rate.
So the ugly fact of Today is that we can Forecast Earthquakes imprecisely. But we are really bad at predicting them.
Decade ago, Scientists had claimed that they were on the Verge of breakthrough of being successfully able to predict earthquakes. But then Mother nature kept on surprising them.
Seismology may even yet lack an adequate grasp of its most central concept, elastic rebound theory. A simulation that explored assumptions regarding the distribution of slip found results “not in agreement with the classical view of the elastic rebound theory”
Ants, other animals can Predict Earthquake a Day in Advance
Yes, this is something new. We know that certain organisms are sensitive to certain energies. e.g. Dogs are very sensitive to paranormal activities, smell, and hearing. Ants do their part to, its to do more with Earth’s vibrations.
Ants literally know when an earthquake is about to hit. As per researchers from University Duisburg-Essen in Germany.
Berberich discovered that Red wood ants tend to live in Colonies. He had planted camera inside the Ant colonies to study their behavior and activity over a wide set of parameters. Patterns were built based upon 3 years of activity of Ants w.r.t parameters tested upon. To their surprise, they found that ant’s behavior changed when Earthquake was above magnitude of 2. Within 3 years, that region in germany had 10 earthquakes ranging from 2 to 3.2 on richter scale.
In daily routine an ant goes for collecting food during the day and takes rest at night. But this changed erratically a day before till day after the earthquake. They stopped going for collecting food and rather indulge in different set of socializing activities a day before the earthquake.
How can ants sense an upcoming earthquake well 24 hours in advance. It could either be with change in gas emissions from earth or the magnetic field that changed by small numbers. Red wood ants have chemoreceptors, a special form of cell that can sense change in carbon dioxide levels. They also have magnetoreceptor to detect variations in electromagnetic fields.
Ants aren’t the only living beings that change their behavior before earthquake. Researchers have seen panic among various other animals and birds. Scientists are now paying more attention to these animals and organisms so in order to better understand the changes in environment that are caused a day or weeks before the earthquake. These would eventually help us predict and forecast earthquakes accurately.
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