Earthquake Forecasting from a Distinctly Non-Seismic Perspective
Event details
| Date | 11.11.2013 |
| Hour | 15:00 › 16:00 |
| Speaker | Friedemann Freund |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Earthquakes, when they strike, are monstrous mechanical events. Seismologists, brilliantly trained in mechanics, have tried to find mechanical signs of impending seismic activity that would show up before major earthquakes. Sadly, no mechanical pre-EQ indicators seem to exist, on which a reliable earthquake early warning system can be built.
Breakthrough: the build-up of mechanical pre-EQ stresses deep below is accompanied by the activation of electric charges, which pre-exist in rocks, albeit in a dormant state. Once activated, these charges have the remarkable ability to flow through kilometers of rocks, even tens of kilometers. On the way through the Earth crust and upon arriving at the Earth surface, they produce a multitude of recognizable non-seismic precursory signals.
At least 12 types of non-seismic pre-EQ signals have been identified, all causally linked to the activation of electric charge carriers deep below. I’ll emphasize one type of these precursory signals: the infrared (IR) radiation generated when stress-activated charge carriers arrive in sufficiently large numbers at the Earth surface and recombine. During recombination they emit IR light in a way that is not too dissimilar to how an LED (Light Emitting Diode) emits visible light. Normally an increase in IR intensity is interpreted as "heat", but the excess IR radiation emitted before major earthquakes, detected by satellites and known as thermal IR (TIR) anomaly, is NOT heat. It is spectroscopically distinct – and distinguishable – from heat. It can be used as one of many pre-EQ indicators.
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Dr. Friedemann Freund is based at the NASA Ames Research Center in Northern California, where he works as a Senior Scientist in the Earth Science Division. He is Adjunct Professor of Physics at the San Jose State University and a Principal Investigator at the SETI Institute. He doesn’t shrink from taking on really big problems.
Dr. Freund started out with an interest in defects in crystals. This has led to the discovery of some hitherto inexplicable anomalies in the electrical properties of oxide materials and rock-forming minerals and ultimately rocks. Understanding these electrical properties helped him elucidate the non-seismic physical processes that accompany the build-up of stresses in the Earth crust prior to major earthquakes. Dr. Freund has shown that rocks, when placed under deviatoric stress, behave like a battery: they generate electric currents that flow out from the stressed rock volume. These currents can reach millions of amperes, causing a diversity of pre-earthquake signals that can be recorded at the Earth surface and from space. Understanding these non-seismic signals and exploiting them is expected to lead to a breakthrough in earthquake forecasting.
Breakthrough: the build-up of mechanical pre-EQ stresses deep below is accompanied by the activation of electric charges, which pre-exist in rocks, albeit in a dormant state. Once activated, these charges have the remarkable ability to flow through kilometers of rocks, even tens of kilometers. On the way through the Earth crust and upon arriving at the Earth surface, they produce a multitude of recognizable non-seismic precursory signals.
At least 12 types of non-seismic pre-EQ signals have been identified, all causally linked to the activation of electric charge carriers deep below. I’ll emphasize one type of these precursory signals: the infrared (IR) radiation generated when stress-activated charge carriers arrive in sufficiently large numbers at the Earth surface and recombine. During recombination they emit IR light in a way that is not too dissimilar to how an LED (Light Emitting Diode) emits visible light. Normally an increase in IR intensity is interpreted as "heat", but the excess IR radiation emitted before major earthquakes, detected by satellites and known as thermal IR (TIR) anomaly, is NOT heat. It is spectroscopically distinct – and distinguishable – from heat. It can be used as one of many pre-EQ indicators.
********************************
Dr. Friedemann Freund is based at the NASA Ames Research Center in Northern California, where he works as a Senior Scientist in the Earth Science Division. He is Adjunct Professor of Physics at the San Jose State University and a Principal Investigator at the SETI Institute. He doesn’t shrink from taking on really big problems.
Dr. Freund started out with an interest in defects in crystals. This has led to the discovery of some hitherto inexplicable anomalies in the electrical properties of oxide materials and rock-forming minerals and ultimately rocks. Understanding these electrical properties helped him elucidate the non-seismic physical processes that accompany the build-up of stresses in the Earth crust prior to major earthquakes. Dr. Freund has shown that rocks, when placed under deviatoric stress, behave like a battery: they generate electric currents that flow out from the stressed rock volume. These currents can reach millions of amperes, causing a diversity of pre-earthquake signals that can be recorded at the Earth surface and from space. Understanding these non-seismic signals and exploiting them is expected to lead to a breakthrough in earthquake forecasting.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Jean-François Molinari, Birgitte Seem, Mathilde Radiguet
Contact
- Birgitte Seem