Story from AFP via Breitbart, h/t to Leif Svalgaard. Maybe the Chinese had it right way back then with this gadget:
For ages, mankind has craved a tool that can provide early warning of that terrifying moment when the earth begins to shake.
But if a scientific paper published on Wednesday is confirmed, we may at last have found one.
The best hope yet of an earthquake predictor could lie in a small, brown, knobbly amphibian, it suggests.
The male common toad (Bufo bufo) gave five days’ warning of the earthquake that ravaged the town of L’Aquila in central Italy on April 6, 2009, killing more than 300 people and displacing 40,000 others, the study says.
Biologist Rachel Grant of Britain’s Open University embarked on a toad-monitoring project at San Ruffino lake, 74 kilometres (46 miles) north of L’Aquila, 10 days before the 6.3-magnitude quake struck.
Her two-person team observed the site for 29 days, counting toad numbers and measuring temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall and other conditions.
By March 28, more than 90 male toads had mustered for the spawning season, but two days later, their numbers suddenly fell, Grant reports.
By April 1 — five days before the quake — 96 percent of the males had fled.
Several dozen ventured back on April 9 for the full moon, a known courtship period for toads, although the tally was some 50-80 percent fewer than in previous years.
After this small peak, the numbers fell once more, only picking up significantly on April 15, two days after the last major aftershock, defined as 4.5 magnitude or higher.
In addition, the number of paired toads at the breeding site also dropped to zero three days before the quake. And no fresh spawn was found at the site from April 6 until the last big after-tremor.
Grant says the toads’ comportment is a “dramatic change” for the species.
Once male toads hole up at a breeding site, they usually never leave until the annual spawning season is over, she notes.
Eager to answer the riddle, Grant obtained Russian measurements of electrical activity in the ionosphere, the uppermost electromagnetic layer in the atmosphere, which were picked up by very low frequency (VLF) radio receivers.
The toads’ two periods of exodus both coincided with bursts of VLF disruption.
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Where did those toads go?
So instead of seismographs only, we need to find animals that are sensitive enough to give a couple days warming. Toads work where and when the toad breed.
Earthquakes sound a lot different and more audible under water than out in the air. Perhaps amplified hydrophones would be of some use.
These indian “toads” made it:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28560952/Ruegg-et-al-2009-1-1
O/T.
“2010 Arctic sea ice sets record! (latest annual max extent on record)
This is one story which will never be written by the MSM, and one thing Gore and the current envirowackos who run the gov’t in DC do NOT want you to know about.
As most people know, the Arctic sea ice grows and wanes with the seasons, and in recent summers, has fallen far below its ‘historical’ (1979-2000) averages. This has prompted the likes of Al Gore to claim the North Pole would be ice free in the summer within a decade or so.
A funny thing is happening on the way to the ice free Arctic, and that is the ice has been recovering each year since about 2005.
This winter is particualarily interesting because those who follow such mundane things as maximum Arctic ice extent know that the ice in the northern hemisphere around the pole usually reaches its maximum extent around March 6. After that date, as the days get longer and the sun rises higher in the sky, the temps rise and the ice starts its inevitable melt.
On March 8, 2010, the maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 14,375,000 KM2 (square kilometers). Most people thought that after the 8th, the ice would stop growing and begin its usual melt. I was of the opinion that the maximum would come later this year because of very cold temps around the Arctic, from Barrow, AK, to Iqaluit Ca, to Siberia. In addition the AO has switched and winds are favorable for more ice to remain bottled up in the Arctic. Lo and behold, after March 8, the sea ice kind of stabilized, and in the last week we have seen a spurt of growth. Yesterday, JAXA reported sea ice extent of 1,405,781 KM2.
What makes this very significant is that the fact the ice is growing LATER into the year, at a time when it is typically shrinking, means the melt season will be shorter this year. This March 30 max annual ice extent is the latest annual max ice extent. If you look at the chart on the link for the last ten years, you will see 2003 had more ice as of today, but by the end of March it was shrinking rapidly. In another day or two, there will be more ice in the Arctic than has been there on April 1 in a decade.
You will never see the MSM admit the ice is recovering, because how can you promote cap and tax if the world will not drown as a result of melting polar ice caps. Mother Nature is having the last word, and please pass this info along to your friends. Don’t let them and their children be deluded into thinking the polar bears are drowning.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2483856/posts
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013681.html
Eager to answer the riddle, Grant obtained Russian measurements of electrical activity in the ionosphere, the uppermost electromagnetic layer in the atmosphere, which were picked up by very low frequency (VLF) radio receivers
Anybody can seeseveral examples of earthquake lights at Youtube.
I have witnessed two big earthquake lights after quakes ended, the light flashes looked the same as an electrical substation explosion I witnessed years before.
King Arthur- “Lancelot- tell me again how sheep’s bladders can be used to predict earthquakes, this new science fascinates me.”
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Maybe. I sure wouldn’t spend a trillion dollars on this science, either, “dramatic change”, “unprecedented,” or not. The science here is cardboard thin, whether the researcher realizes it or not. And why not just monitor the VLF levels? I see no obvious evolutionary advantage for a toad of being able to predict earthquakes. A grant to pursue this? Sure, we’ve blown a lot more on worse science. It’s a travesty.
My bunions give me no end when rains a comin.
Is the date: “April 1st” significant?
Don’t tell anyone but I’m planning to issue a press release tomorrow outlining a brand new invention:
CO2 air curtain
This new innovative air curtain uses the heat blanketing properties of CO2 to effectively eliminate the tranmission of heat through the curtain making it an ideal way to prevent cold spots in stores, houses, factories!
It also has the beneficial side effect of killing all pests, mice, rats … with only one small drawback!
And my wife claims that when my left palm itches there’s big money coming my way!
Woohoo! Still, I’ll keep relying on my divining rods…
Sorry the above link relates instead to “french” toads, who succesfully forecasted last february’s chilean earthquake☺, the indian ones here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28560923/Earthquake-Planets-2
And here, a link for RF Emissions as earthquake precursors:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29238677/Earthquake-3
And the chorus sings, “Correlation is not causation”
Here is a nice map of earthquakes for the last 7 days.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/
So where was the toad warning for these?
or where was the mouse warning:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3033000/3033702.stm
zebra, elephant, or more toads?
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/world/147764-did-animal-antics-warn-of-quake
fish, birds, dogs?
google search, “animals warn of earthquakes” 237,000 hits
Chile had a magnitude 6.2 on Friday. Any animal alerts?
These guys never understand statistics and null hypothesis.
“The toads’ two periods of exodus both coincided with bursts of VLF disruption.”
Haven’t we been monitoring these waves for a while now? And nobody is keeping track of these bursts and checking them against earthquake activity? And what’s different about the toads’ monitoring of it?
I don’t mean to wonder too much about this report, but if I’m a biologist studying toads and I notice something unusual, my first thought is not likely to be “let’s ask the Russians for data on electrical activity in the ionosphere.”
Interesting stuff, nonetheless.
so, where would the toads go? I mean, they can’t go far enough to get away from the quake, so what’s the point? not saying that there’s not a biological change in behavior, but I can’t see that “fleeing” is an evolved response to quakes.
thus the behavior, while interesting, may not have much usefulness to earthquake prediction. If other events, which ARE an evolved response, also result in an earthquake prediction response, all the other events will yield false alarms for earthquakes, thus limiting usefulness for earthquake prediction.
on the other hand, maybe they didn’t “flee” but rather went far underground where it’s, presumably, safer from falling debris, etc. THAT could be an evolved response with some utility.
of course, this requires that quakes occurred frequently enough that the “hide” mutation would be selected because the “not hide” toads would be killed, which sounds unlikely because quakes are uncommon events for any particular locale.
I’ll stop now before I talk myself into a circle.
Enneagram (09:52:53) :
These indian “toads” made it:
I hope your Indian friend does not take offence.
Chileans could import some pretty looking atelopus peruensis
Although anecdotal, it is widely observed that many animals includes birds, house pets (dogs, cats) and others become highly agitated just prior to a seismic event.
We had a downstate Illinois earthquake a few years ago, and the agitation of flocks of birds prior to the quake was widely reported. There are other signs, including sudden malodors in well-water (from release of sulfurous gases) etc.
Didn’t know about the Chinese toad-basket, very cool! We modern humans think we are so smart, so how many Walls of China or Great Pyramids have we built lately?
Using the logic of our AGW friends, we can prove that toads failing to mate cause catastrophic earthquakes.
In Hawaii they also understood that failing to throw people into the volcano on a regular basis caused eruptions.
Leave it to nature. Much smarter than we are in many respects.
Who’d of thought the Arctic extent would be peaking now. Just when you think you have a grasp on things… God pulls a funny! LOL
I seem to remember reading somewhere that a geologist in CA found that an increase in missing cat ads in the local paper often presaged an earthquake . So if you don’t warts , get a cat .
Toads can perceive the future.
I have been consulting a progression of toads for investment advice for many years.
“We thought you was a toad!” (Delmar)
Ok fine, but do toads know the difference between weather and climate?
I think not.
But if I get a few million in grant money I’ll find out for sure.
Here the abstract:
ABSTRACT
Various research workers have reported EM emission prior to earthquakes or during an earthquake sequence. In few cases, these EM emissions were consistently found during certain hours of the day. EM emission in semi-diurnal pattern spaced in time domain from the local noontime was
observed in many examples prior to earthquakes / volcanic eruption. Also such emission was observed in a very wide frequency band from VLF to Microwave range. Besides this semi diurnal type of pattern, some other type of EM emission had diurnal pattern. This type was witnessed in Valsad [1991] and Chilean earthquake sequence [1960], in which it preceded semidiurnal pattern found in these earthquake sequences. The cause of this type of EM emission seems to be completely different than that for semidiurnal type. Efforts are made here to check whether the gravitational forces of the planetary alignments caused these types of RF emission. This paper discusses all these examples in details and discusses an application for the development of reliable monitoring of Earthquake/ Volcanic eruption precursors in the high seismicity area..
V.G.Kolvankar, Seismology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai