Quakefinder Blog

There was a recent article in “ExtremeTech” about QuakeFinder where they captured the essence of what QuakeFinder is all about.  If you are just starting to learn about QuakeFinder, this is a must read! Check out Quakefinder article at ExtremeTech.com

We are working towards forecasting earthquakes based on magnetic pulse patterns and air conductivity changes similar to those patterns observed prior to previous earthquakes. The only recent earthquake near one of our sites was Anza in southern California. Even though we thought the magnitude would be too small to detect, we did see some similar patterns. The Anza quake was a M 4.7 on Tuesday, March 11th at 08:55:42 PDT located approximately 13.4 miles S.E. from our Anza site (869).

Our hypothesis, based on experience, is that we should see some indications if the quake is greater than M5 and located within a 10 mile radius. Therefore, we see this as a marginal quake.

The site equipment was healthy, so we looked at our Exp5, Exp7, and qf1 algorithms where each algorithm has slightly different amplitude threshold and pulse finding characteristic.

The 32 day plot of Exp5 appeared to show the best indication, see below:



The quake is the diamond in the upper right, and the most sustained signal (2 days) starts at -16 to -15 days prior to the quake. Each tick mark on the X-axis is one day in this 32 day plot. If the quake had 4-5 days of sustained activity, it is considered to be a more reliable indicator (and usually occurs prior to a larger quake).

The signals were analyzed over several weeks, and several unipolar pulses were found. As an example, the 3 taller pulses in the plot below, are mostly positive in direction (“unipolar”).



There were also several very long pulses in the data during February 23. The Kp worldwide magnetic index was very quiet during the same time. None of the sites near Anza saw the same long pulses (indicating that they were not from world-wide, solar-magnetospheric disturbances) therefore, the source of the long pulses may be associated with the area near the earthquake (tbd).

The air conductivity sensor is examined for the 48 hours prior to the quake. No positive ions activity showed for 30 days prior to the quake, and the sensor appeared to be working (as shown by the hourly calibration signal in the data). We would expect to see some positive ions within 48 hours of the quake if the site is close to the epicenter. The negative ion detector can be “fooled by rain”. There was no rain during March 10 and 11 (but there was some on Mar 09), so the relative humidity (a contaminant) is good for March 10-11. Neither the positive or negative ion sensors showed signals those days. However, there is activity on the negative ions for Mar 09, but that is due to evaporating water on the ground from rain on that day. Why wasn’t there a positive indication within 48 hours of the quake (as seen on previous quakes)? The prevailing winds are from the west, so if the ions were generated at the epicenter, they would not drift against the oncoming wind to the Anza ion sensors. Borrego Springs is the next site to the southeast in the wind path, unfortunately it was off line. We have sent a technician to the Borrego site and are trying to determine if the site was recording data and had simply lost cell phone communication.

Summary: This is a marginal quake (size and distance from the epicenter) but there is a small pulse count indication observed at -15 to -16 days with smaller rise in counts at -1 and -9 days. It was difficult to pick this out from the normal patterns, but the longer (20-40 sec.) pulses may provide some insight into the quake generation process.

As I listen to the news regarding government gridlock over sequestration and recent USGS warnings about the number of deaths expected from earthquakes in the coming century, I am struck with the realization of how difficult it is to make progress, even in light of dire warnings about the consequences.

In the case of our national budget, it is extremely difficult to obtain consensus on what to do and how to fix it.  Yet everyone agrees that we need to make hard decisions regarding government spending. However, no one seems to want to take the first step and do something.

In the case of earthquakes, many agree that earthquakes will cause a large loss in life in the 21st century. What we don’t agree on is whether earthquakes could eventually be forecasted. Some say that it is, and will always be, impossible to predict earthquakes. How does society move from “Impossible” to “Plausible”, and finally to “Operational” earthquake forecasting?

Governments are notoriously slow in changing the “Status Quo”, or in trying something radically different. QuakeFinder represents a different model which was born from a strong curiosity and desire to try a new approach.

Can the complex environmental monitoring techniques that QuakeFinder developed be used to attack earthquake forecasting in a different way? A possible link to the discovery of a new charged particle (p-hole charge carrier) could explain many of the electromagnetic observations.  If magnetic field changes, air conductivity changes, Infra-red observations, and earthquake lights are signals then the goal is to develop instruments and networks to detect, record, observe, and exploit these signals. Incubation of this idea and the imperative to make progress requires money, in this case, money to build the instruments and networks to monitor the electromagnetic signals.

QuakeFinder operates as a humanitarian research project of Stellar Solutions, Inc., a global aerospace engineering firm.   Companies like the Musk Foundation, PG&E, Earth Networks, Telefonica, and Vodafone have supported QuakeFinder to make progress on earthquake forecasting. The government, via NASA Earth Science, has also contributed to the support of the research phase.  In addition, more than one hundred private homeowners have contributed by allowing QuakeFinder to install and operate instruments on their property. This collaboration represents actual progress.  We are excited about the progress our research is making and push forward, pioneering to the goal of an operational phase of earthquake forecasting.

Tom

QuakeFinder has switched its internal processing over to a much larger disc array, and made several other process refinements.  Our estimate was four days of outage and we got it done in three.  We will be paying close attention over the next several days to make sure everything is working.  Thanks to everyone who helped out!