New Delhi: Turkey observed unusually high ground temperatures and levels of greenhouse gases in the air days before two earthquakes struck the country on February 6, 2023, a new research has found.
Analyzing satellite data from November 1, 2022, to February 10, 2023, Mehdi Akhundzadeh of the University of Tehran in Iran said monitoring the ground and atmosphere for unusual physical and chemical parameters – known as earthquake precursors – Could be part of an early warning system for earthquakes.
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria had a magnitude of at least 7.6 and were spaced about nine hours apart. The death toll was said to exceed 50,000 and the earthquake was the deadliest in modern history.
Even though researchers know about earthquake precursors, it has been difficult until now to conclusively identify patterns of "red flags" that might predict an impending earthquake, said the authors of the study published in the Journal of Applied Geodesy. Can.
This is because the interactions between these entities are complex and their variability across different earthquakes and geographic regions is also complex, Akhundzadeh said.However, with each earthquake that researchers analyze using satellite observations, patterns are slowly emerging among these earthquake precursors, according to Akhundzadeh.
In the study, the authors observed abnormal temperatures on the land surface as early as 12–19 days before the earthquake.
Akhundzadeh also found unusual levels of water vapor, methane, ozone, and carbon monoxide in the air 5–10 days before the seismic shock. Levels of charged particles such as electrons were found to be unusually high (in the ionosphere) 1–5 days before the earthquake.
Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain unusual events occurring in the Earth's layers before earthquakes, but none of them have been conclusively proven, the authors said in the study.Some of these include "hot gases released due to molten fluids forming inside the Earth before the earthquake" and "activation of positive (charges) due to the pressure of underground rocks and their reaching the Earth's surface", the authors wrote. .
Studying these events could pave the way for earthquake early warning systems, Akhundzadeh said, but researchers will need to assess other earthquakes in the future to fully understand these patterns.
The analysis used data from the Chinese seismological-electromagnetic satellite, CSES-01, and the European Space Agency's Swarm mission, consisting of three satellites.
Analyzing satellite data from November 1, 2022, to February 10, 2023, Mehdi Akhundzadeh of the University of Tehran in Iran said monitoring the ground and atmosphere for unusual physical and chemical parameters – known as earthquake precursors – Could be part of an early warning system for earthquakes.
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria had a magnitude of at least 7.6 and were spaced about nine hours apart. The death toll was said to exceed 50,000 and the earthquake was the deadliest in modern history.
Even though researchers know about earthquake precursors, it has been difficult until now to conclusively identify patterns of "red flags" that might predict an impending earthquake, said the authors of the study published in the Journal of Applied Geodesy. Can.
This is because the interactions between these entities are complex and their variability across different earthquakes and geographic regions is also complex, Akhundzadeh said.However, with each earthquake that researchers analyze using satellite observations, patterns are slowly emerging among these earthquake precursors, according to Akhundzadeh.
In the study, the authors observed abnormal temperatures on the land surface as early as 12–19 days before the earthquake.
Akhundzadeh also found unusual levels of water vapor, methane, ozone, and carbon monoxide in the air 5–10 days before the seismic shock. Levels of charged particles such as electrons were found to be unusually high (in the ionosphere) 1–5 days before the earthquake.
Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain unusual events occurring in the Earth's layers before earthquakes, but none of them have been conclusively proven, the authors said in the study.Some of these include "hot gases released due to molten fluids forming inside the Earth before the earthquake" and "activation of positive (charges) due to the pressure of underground rocks and their reaching the Earth's surface", the authors wrote. .
Studying these events could pave the way for earthquake early warning systems, Akhundzadeh said, but researchers will need to assess other earthquakes in the future to fully understand these patterns.
The analysis used data from the Chinese seismological-electromagnetic satellite, CSES-01, and the European Space Agency's Swarm mission, consisting of three satellites.
