Study: Ozone From Rock Fracture Could Serve As Earthquake Early Warning
— Researchers the world over are seeking reliable ways to predict earthquakes, focusing on identifying seismic precursors that, if detected early enough, could serve as early warnings.
New research, published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters, suggests that ozone gas emitted from fracturing rocks could serve as an indicator of impending earthquakes. Ozone is a natural gas, a byproduct of electrical discharges into the air from several sources, such as from lightning, or, according to the new research, from rocks breaking under pressure.
Scientists in the lab of Raúl A. Baragiola, a professor of engineering physics in the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, set up experiments to measure ozone produced by crushing or drilling into different igneous and metamorphic rocks, including granite, basalt, gneiss, rhyolite and quartz. Different rocks produced different amounts of ozone, with rhyolite producing the strongest ozone emission.
Some time prior to an earthquake, pressures begin to build in underground faults. These pressures fracture rocks, and presumably, would produce detectable ozone.
To distinguish whether the ozone was coming from the rocks or from reactions in the atmosphere, the researchers conducted experiments in pure oxygen, nitrogen, helium and carbon dioxide. They found that ozone was produced by fracturing rocks only in conditions containing oxygen atoms, such as air, carbon dioxide and pure oxygen molecules, indicating that it came from reactions in the gas. This suggests that rock fractures may be detectable by measuring ozone.
Baragiola began the study by wondering if animals, which seem – at least anecdotally – to be capable of anticipating earthquakes, may be sensitive to changing levels of ozone, and therefore able to react in advance to an earthquake. It occurred to him that if fracturing rocks create ozone, then ozone detectors might be used as warning devices in the same way that animal behavioral changes might be indicators of seismic activity.
He said the research has several implications.
“If future research shows a positive correlation between ground-level ozone near geological faults and earthquakes, an array of interconnected ozone detectors could monitor anomalous patterns when rock fracture induces the release of ozone from underground and surface cracks,” he said.
“Such an array, located away from areas with high levels of ground ozone, could be useful for giving early warning to earthquakes.”
He added that detection of an increase of ground ozone might also be useful in anticipating disasters in tunnel excavation, landslides and underground mines.
Baragiola’s co-authors are U.Va. research scientist Catherine Dukes and visiting student Dawn Hedges.
— By Fariss Samarrai
Ozone generation by rock fracture: Earthquake early warning?
Engineering Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA
(Received 10 August 2011; accepted 26 October 2011; published online 14 November 2011)
We report the production of up to 10 ppm ozone during crushing and grinding of typical terrestrial crust rocks in air, O2 and CO2 at atmospheric pressure, but not in helium or nitrogen. Ozone is formed by exoelectrons emitted by high electric fields, resulting from charge separation during fracture. The results suggest that ground level ozone produced by rock fracture, besides its potential health hazard, can be used for early warning in earthquakes and other catastrophes, such as landslides or land shifts in excavation tunnels and underground mines.
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This isn’t a new idea though, a similar study was published in the Journal Remote Sensing (well before the editor resigned)
Variation in atmospheric ozone concentration following strong earthquakes
- DOI:
- 10.1080/01431160802282862
Abstract
The changes in atmospheric ozone concentration for earthquakes (with a magnitude greater than 5.0 on the Richter scale and a depth of focus less than 35 km), which have occurred worldwide during the period from September to March for the years 1991–2006, have been studied with the help of satellite data obtained from Nimbus‐7 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), Earth probe TOMS and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument. The trend of variation in total ozone concentration after all these earthquakes was found to be similar. The ozone concentration was low on the day of the earthquake, increased gradually after the earthquake and reached a maximum value and thereafter decreased to its normal value. The increase in ozone concentration was found to be dependent on the magnitude of the quake, depth of focus, wind direction and geographical location of the epicentre.
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Any of indicators may fail to materialise or give a false warning.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
If you can find 2 rounded quartz rocks, (these are frequently used for landscaping near the Eastern Coastal Plain), rub them together in a dark room. A flash is visible inside the stones. (This is called triboluminescence.) Now smell the stones. They will smell like a burnt match. I always assumed that this was sulfur, but perhaps it is ozone.
uh oh. Now we have to worry about ozone too. Maybe animals smell this and that is what causing them to act strange before a quake.Maybe something will come out of this but it seems I’ve read something similiar before this report.
Junk science. The concentration of any gas released from the crust is affected by so many parameters that you cannot reliably deconvolute the quantitative deformation and crushing extent of rocks.
I’m puzzled by the statement that the ozone levels required the presence of oxygen gas. So does the stress release the gas, then triboelectrially convert the oxygen to ozone? Seems to be a very “structured” experiment. I’m guessing there’s a large pool of untapped funds for early warning…
I thought some Italian ‘experts’ had already discovered that toads were the alarm bells. Or was that the distribution of goat entrails?
Predicting earthquakes is always 10 years out.
People think I’m nuts when I say science should get out of the prediction business, but the reality is every corruption of the investigation process comes from people selling predictive capability of human knowledge to grant boards.
So, essentially, this earthquake detection system is like looking to see if earth worms will crap themselves all suddenly like for no good go’damn reason?
I really hate to be flippant, but I can’t resist. I hope Professor Baragiola is better at keeping records of his research than that other illustrious UVa researcher, Michael Mann.
It’s obvious that the ozone is actually causing the earthquakes. Just because the ozone is at a higher concentration after the earthquake than before is no reason to doubt or be skeptical of this claim.
Janice
Similarly, there is no reason to doubt that collapsed buildings cause earthquakes. There’s just a little lag time due to Chinese aerosols.
Musicians call the 5:2 resonance of Jupiter and Saturn a dezime.
It is remarkable that on a geocentric view on the local meridian of a major quake (>7.0) to that time the moving solar objects have statistical significant often phase relations similar to music intervals from the Pythagorean scale.
The phase relation is phi = abs (p2 – p1) , the ratio is R = t2/t1 = 1+ (phi/2Pi) .
p2 p1 phi t1=c' R
MO - NE = 179.08° g' 3/2
SO - JU = 119.55° f' 4/3
PL - SA = 119.0° f' 4/3
MO - SU = 91.37° e' 5/4
SU - NE = 87.71° e' 5/4
UR - JU = 59.48° dis' 7/6
SU - UR = 60.07° dis' 7/6
MA - ME = 47.86° d' 9/8
PL - ME = 47.86° d' 9/8
ME - VE = 29.03° des' 13/12
SA - MA = 30.45° des' 13/12
NE - UR = 27.63° des' 13/12
PL - MA = 149.45° ges' 17/12
ME - SU = 21.53° ? 17/16
MA - ME = 21.98° ? 17/16
PL - JU = 21.61° ? 17/16
VE - SU = 7.5° ? 49/48
The 12 phase angles of 9 objects are 7.5°, 30°, 60°, 90°, 120°, 150° und 180° (error < ~2°).
This pattern was the sky configuration in Sichuan, China, 12. Mai 2008 um 06:28:01 UTC (14:28:01 Local Time) 5.8 Million people were homeless.
A summing up curve of these ‘harmonic’ special phase angles in 5 minutes steps for the month of Mai 2008 shows two strong peaks 12th Mai 2008.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/china_2.gif
The Tsunami quake in Japan im March 2011 occurred on a geocentric sky pattern with multiple phase distances on the ecliptic of 10°.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/mag9_plan_dist.gif
In the most cases this pattern has a match to the local meridian projected on the ecliptic. And this gives hope that a forecast may be possible to known locations of the borders of the plates.
The positions at the quake in Kobe, Japan again were well known music intervals:
Planet zu M.C. Länge Mode Winkel Fehler
Mond -88.126° 116.424° 4 (90°) 1.87°
Mars -53.17° 151.38° - - -
M.C. 0° 204.55° - - -
Pluto 35.44° 239.99° 10 (36°) 0.66°
Jupiter 42.91° 247.46° 8 (45°) 2.09°
Venus 44.88° 249.43° 8 (45°) 0.22°
Neptun 88.61° 293.16° 4 (90°) 1.39°
Sun 91.71° 296.26° 4 (90°) 1.71°
Uranus 91.85° 296.4° 4 (90°) 1.85°
Merkur 110.13° 314.68° 10 (36*3=108°) 2.13°
Saturn 134.9° 339.45° 8 (45°*3=135°) 0.1°
Although there is no mechanism in sight, it is remarkable that Earth quakes occur in harmony with solar objects. Moreover solar flares occur also at such harmonic heliocentric configurations:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/560223b.jpg
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/hung_plot.gif
V.
Very interesting, I was wondering if that was how animals can allegedly accomplish the same feat before I got down that far.
Which you have conclusively shown through extensive field measurements of the type suggested, right? You are probably one of those lights of science who, in the early 1800’s, suggested that passengers in a train would suffocate if the train exceeded 30 mph due to the vacuum created by the train’s passage through the air. Or ridiculed the idea of even attempting a solo airplane flight across the Atlantic. Or scoffed at the theory of continental drift. Or… Well, you get the gist.
This one’s a little like those people who have predicted 27 of the last two recessions. It’s sooo much easier to pick up some sort of signal with hindsight than it is to correctly identify a signal with foresight.
1. Often the fractures occur many km underground where little oxygen is present.
2. You would need to have detectors many km underground where the fractures are.
3. The life time of ozone is really short and would never make it to ground level where the detectors would be placed. Therefore, the earthquake would be done and gone a whole lot of time before they would detect anything, if they ever do.
4. Drilling is not exactly representative of a fracture.
5. Anything to get grants.
Translation: Maybe, could be, we hope, ought to and on and on. Give me money to study something interesting and maybe, if we are real lucky, we will come up with some magic formula, to accurately predict that which we have only a vague understanding of. More baffle gab.
Something is desperately wrong with this and a host of other pictures. The science is interesting stuff and it will be cool to study it. That is the best and probably at this point the only reason to do so. That these researchers and so many others find it essential to make up crap to get funding is sad. I think ultimately counterproductive, it raises expectations that will probably never be met.
How do animals distinguish between ozone from an earthquake fault and ozone from other sources — say an impending thunderstorm?
Still though it is an interesting paper as long as you keep it in perspective and do not confuse it with divine revelation.
If rocks are being crushed just before an earthquake, they should be making snapping sounds that could be received by underground acoustic monitors (geophones). With a triangular array of such devices, it should be possible to use correlation techniques to locate each fracture. Another possible indicator would be a change in the strain-response to lunar and solar tidal stresses in the ground.
Perhaps the best way to predict the exact time of an known impending earthquake would be to detonate a huge explosive charge right at the center of maximum strain and trigger the event at a time of our choice.
So, this research is telling us that if you are to drill rocks, have a good ventilation system so you don’t breath too much ozone… good to know!
Well, there are many anecdotal reports of and measured responses of atmospheric and electrical disturbances in the days leading up to earthquakes. Perhaps some of these (and maybe ozone) will provide a process for prediction (that doesn’t just result in a lot of false signals).
Good lord their own abstract debunks the possibility of ground based ozone detectors having any predictive value! It reads:
“The ozone concentration was low on the day of the earthquake, increased gradually after the earthquake and…”
They are proposing a network of gound based ozone detectors even though they cite data in their own abstract that says that the ozone levels don’t increase until AFTER the earthquake. They theorize that perhaps animals sense earthquakes before they happen by smelling the increase of ozone….that happens AFTER the earthquake.
Does someone need to explain the words “before” and “after” to them? Never mind, clearly it got past the granting bodies and the peer review process too. Maybe they even get the grant money BEFORE they apply for it? And they do the lab work AFTER they publish the paper? Is that how this works? If not, does someone have a better explanation?
Interestingly, Christian Friedrich Schönbein in who proposed ozone existed in 1840, named it after the Greek verb ozein (ὄζειν, “to smell”), from the peculiar odor in lightning storms.
O/T but can’t even open TipsnNotes today anthony…
17 Nov: BigGovernment: 80% of ‘green energy’ loans went to top Obama donors
With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.
As the list reveals, 80 percent of all $20.5 billion in Department of Energy loans went to President Obama’s top donors. Furthermore, some of those dwarf in size those given to Obama bundler George Kaiser, owner of the now defunct Solyndra.
The list—which features the likes of Google owners Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ted Turner, John Doerr, and Al Gore—raises new questions about the procedures used to administer the now-controversial DOE loans…
http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/16/80-of-green-energy-loans-went-to-obamas-top-donors/
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“Some time prior to an earthquake, pressures begin to build in underground faults.”
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Without trillions of motion detectors, this statement many never be expanded upon.
But, it is fun to think so.
Gaia, fully intends to kill those not prepared for the fury She can produce, only those that have heeded Her prior warnings and (gulp) adapted, have any chance for survival.
(sorry, did I say that out loud?)