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Science

Satellites Image Earthquakes 41

Posted by CowboyNeal from the plate-tectonics dept.
evilocity writes "A BBC story reports that scientists are now using satellite radar to study earthquakes and fault lines, gathering more data than was ever before possible. Already the findings are challenging current theories, but the practical goal of course is earthquake forecasting."
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Satellites Image Earthquakes More

Satellites Image Earthquakes

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  • Similar technology... (Score:4, Informative)

    by aaronsb ( 138360 ) <aaronsbNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday September 14, 2002 @11:07AM (#4256926)
    This is similar to the USGS's identification of a volcanic uplift in Oregon. There's a large bulg developing near the Three Sisters Peaks. (it's only a couple inches different though).

    Here's a link.

    http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Sisters/West Up lift/ground_uplift_may2001.html

  • Have they found scientific evidence for the 'Tremors' movies, that maybe earthquakes are the result of precambrian beings who desire to eat all of us?

    I'm keeping my fingers crossed for yes.
  • We need this here in Managua. There was a report that a major earthquake was expected last week, but it didn't happen. Bizzarely, the media then said the danger was over. Given the history of this town, I don't buy that for a second. We are in danger of losing hundreds or thousands of lives (potentially including mine) at any moment, so any help is a big help.
    • Your concern is understandable. I mean, if there is a fault, and pressure is building, then there is no reason to assume just because it didn't go off when predicted that it won't go off in the near future.

      Though, from what I remember (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but the plates press up against each other with a kind of wave like regularity. That is -- there is some kind of ressonance going on and when the frequencies get within a certain range (as the theories currently go) the conditions are better for an earthquake than when they aren't ressonating "right" or whatever.

      I'm certainly no expert on the subject, and perhaps someone would like to explain this further. But my point is -- I think if they predicted an earthquake at a certian time, it was probably because they believed the conditions would be right for it at that time.

      Of course, since it's all theory and they really don't have much of a clue, I think I would be packing my bags if I were you.
    • I'm in a Quake prone zone, (New Zealand), and I wonder a bit about how this is going to help.

      "AARGH!! There is a Quake coming in the next three weeks"

      Bugger.

      Now what do I do?

      Hmm. Hoo, Hum. Dunno. May as well go fishing, was going to do that anyway...

  • But this [go.com] is kind of cool. A while back, when we Seattleites weathered an earthquake, a pendulum set up in a store that was balanced over sand carved an amazing pattern. It's worth a look, even if it has nothing to do with satellites!

  • Earthquake forecasting? (Score:3, Funny)

    by fence ( 70444 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @11:24AM (#4256983) Homepage
    Does anyone believe that scientists will be able to accurately forecast earthquakes in our lifetime(s)?

    Really, many of our local TV weather-critters don't accurately forecast the weather for tomorrow, earthquakes seem to be a bit of a stretch.

    Tomorrow we anticipate clear skys in the San Fernando Valley, with a high near 82 degrees F. Look for minor tremors around magnitude 4.5 in the foothills during your afternoon commute
    • Of course we can predict earthquakes. I predict there will be an earthquake. There. It's a natural cycle. the planet isn't solid. it moves
    • Actually, assuming there is a good way to predict earthquakes with enough data, we might be able to get more accurate with earthquakes than the weather.

      The basic problem with the weather is that we just can't collect enough data to actually form a solid prediction for more than a few days; there are just too many unknowns. But with earthquakes, we might be able to correlate satellite data with seismic events and be able to see where the next "slip" of the tectonics might be...

  • ... but the practical goal of course is earthquake forecasting.

    Hmm.. I see no mention in the story of using this kind of technology to do earthquake forecasting. I think CowboyNeal got a bit carried away. My own opinion; earthquake forecasting is in the very distant future.

  • I'm pretty sure forecasts are possible. Geologists can already today measure the increasing pressure in a fault that eventually produces a quake. The technology described in this article only gives them a more comprehensive tool to do this.

    However, we need to keep in mind that these processes operate on geological time scales. When you start seeing pressure in a fault, and no slippage, you pretty much know there will be a quake "soon". However, our society need predictions accurate to the day, and I doubt we'll see better accuracy than month, year or decade.

    There are, apparently, signs of an impending quake that operate on shorter (week or month) time scales, but there are enough false positives (or rather, again the time scale is such that they seem to be false positives on the human time scale), that these warnings will not be taken seriously enough.

    Geological evidence suggests that the Californian peninsula eventually will be an island outside Seattle (not sinking in the sea as some SF suggests). We can pretty much assume it won't walk there, so if you live around the fault, you pretty much know what's going to happen, just not exactly when.

    Myself, I was in the SF-area for the first time in 1989, just in time for the Loma Prieta earthquake. I have never returned - I can take a hint.

  • Navagent's EarthQuake (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jamyang ( 605452 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @12:21PM (#4257171) Homepage
    EarthQuake is a slick little app that contacts the USGS and gathers the latest quake data, and then plots it onto a spinning globe on your desktop. You can customize the style display, set alarms to trigger when a new quake occurs anywhere in the world, and sort data by Richter scale quake magnitude.

    250k ZIP file download [navagent.com]
    Only available for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP

    Navagent also offer a powerful search and data visualization tool that i've found useful for tracking the China Googlebomb: Surf3D [openflows.org]

  • I love the blurry photo of the scientist, or rather the caption.

    "Yuri Fialko says the earthquake data is valuable"

    Not too enthralling for us who just like to look at the pictures, rather than RTFA'ing.
  • "but the practical goal of course is earthquake forecasting."

    How would this help? Are you going to purge say, Mexico city? What would you do with ten million people? Force them to the dessert for a week?

    Just warn the elite? The /.ers? Should we not be prepared for any disaster, natural or not?

    I just don't see how forecasting would help.


    • Remember:
      forecasting != predicting

      Forecasting long term seismic activity is valuable for strategic plans including placement of emergency responders and updating of building codes.
      It _will_ happen, we just don't know exactly when. The best we can say is that the odds are higher here than there in the (relatively) near future.
      • kfstark wrote;

        Remember:
        forecasting != predicting

        I have one word for to respond to your circular reasoning.

        Sophistry. [m-w.com]

        • namtog wrote:
          >I have one word for to respond to your circular >reasoning.

          >Sophistry. [m-w.com]

          From the same site:

          FORECAST adds the implication of anticipating eventualities and differs from PREDICT in being usually concerned with probabilities rather than certainties

  • OK, this seems outlandish, crazy, and primitive, but here's my thoughts.

    Usually within a few minutes of an earthquake, your animals will start acting unusually restless. Cats just can't sit down, dogs start barking madly at seemingly nothing all around them, and one of my coworkers observed a murder of crows start cawing at midnight - within a few minutes of a small tremor that fired off just northeast of Yorba Linda, CA a couple of weeks ago. (The event was on the Whittier fault, made famous 15 years ago when everybody in California died during the Whittier Narrows quake according to an apparent report by a major national news network. The fault runs through Chino Hills, north of Yorba Linda. This has been another Useless Fact(TM).)

    Now these are all animals that can hear outside of the human hearing range of 20 Hz-20 KHz. (Or is it 2 KHz that the uper ceiling is at? I don't remember. Anyway....)

    Point being, I am thinking they are hearing something we can't. As outlandish as it sounds, perhaps we should be making studies using frequency counters that would pick up that which is outside of human hearing?

    I guess I just think that using sattelites to predict it seems a bit outlandish.

  • It is widely known that animals react strangely before substantial seismic activity.

    Perhaps scientists should get their heads out of space and hook up animal shelter's life signs to computers to monitor unusual symptoms on a macro scale.

    Cats get all squirrelly before major quakes, which was evidenced by the doubling of lost pet classified ads in San Francisco papers leading up to the 1989 quake.

  • usgs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dirvish ( 574948 )
    You can report and view reports of earthquakes here [usgs.gov].
  • I think these Californians are over stating their claim, or at least the BBC story is.

    People in our department have been using SAR interferometry for a number of years to study earthquake motion, and <a href="http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~timw/dinar/dinar. html">here's</a> a page detailing the work on the 1995 Dinar (Greece) earthquake, and another on the <a href="http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~geodesy/izmit.htm l">1999 Izmit (Turkey)</a> earthquake.

    Sorry, I just felt I needed to set the record straight.

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