BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Earthquake Forecasting from a Distinctly Non-Seismic Perspective
DTSTART:20131111T150000
DTEND:20131111T160000
DTSTAMP:20260610T042453Z
UID:726a611df69276df9012bb2eb5215d56d9729fad7c8e8e939b06ee8e
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Friedemann Freund\nEarthquakes\, when they strike\, are monstr
 ous mechanical events. Seismologists\, brilliantly trained in mechanics\, 
 have tried to find mechanical signs of impending seismic activity that wou
 ld show up before major earthquakes. Sadly\, no mechanical pre-EQ indicato
 rs seem to exist\, on which a reliable earthquake early warning system can
  be built.\nBreakthrough: the build-up of mechanical pre-EQ stresses deep 
 below is accompanied by the activation of electric charges\, which pre-exi
 st in rocks\, albeit in a dormant state.  Once activated\, these charges 
 have the remarkable ability to flow through kilometers of rocks\, even ten
 s of kilometers. On the way through the Earth crust and upon arriving at t
 he Earth surface\, they produce a multitude of recognizable non-seismic pr
 ecursory signals.\nAt least 12 types of non-seismic pre-EQ signals have be
 en identified\, all causally linked to the activation of electric charge c
 arriers deep below. I’ll emphasize one type of these precursory signals:
  the infrared (IR) radiation generated when stress-activated charge carrie
 rs arrive in sufficiently large numbers at the Earth surface and recombine
 . During recombination they emit IR light in a way that is not too dissimi
 lar to how an LED (Light Emitting Diode) emits visible light. Normally an 
 increase in IR intensity is interpreted as "heat"\, but the excess IR radi
 ation emitted before major earthquakes\, detected by satellites and known 
 as thermal IR (TIR) anomaly\, is NOT heat.  It is spectroscopically disti
 nct – and distinguishable – from heat. It can be used as one of many p
 re-EQ indicators.\n********************************\nDr. 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 Adjunc
 t Professor of Physics at the San Jose State University and a Principal In
 vestigator at the SETI Institute. He doesn’t shrink from taking on reall
 y big problems.\nDr. Freund started out with an interest in defects in cry
 stals. This has led to the discovery of some hitherto inexplicable anomali
 es in the electrical properties of oxide materials and rock-forming minera
 ls and ultimately rocks.  Understanding these electrical properties helpe
 d him elucidate the non-seismic physical processes that accompany the buil
 d-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 stress
 ed rock volume.  These currents can reach millions of amperes\, causing a
  diversity of pre-earthquake signals that can be recorded at the Earth sur
 face and from space. Understanding these non-seismic signals and exploitin
 g them is expected to lead to a breakthrough in earthquake forecasting.
LOCATION: GCB331 http://plan.epfl.ch/?zoom=20&recenter_y=5864202.78485&rec
 enter_x=730964.95682&layerNodes=fonds\,batiments\,labels\,information\,par
 kings_publics\,arrets_metro&floor=3&q=_GCB331
STATUS:CONFIRMED
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR