Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Recently, the news of the earthquake in Turkey has aroused widespread concern. At 4:17 a.m. local time in Turkey on February 6, a strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit people still sleeping. At 13:24 p.m. local time in Turkey, another strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 swept through the victims of the disaster like a nightmare again.

The first strong earthquake occurred in Turkey's southern border with Syria, surrounded by dense population. Due to the shallow earthquake location and the large amount of energy released by the earthquake source, the earthquake caused great damage to the houses near the surface, resulting in a large number of casualties and property losses. So far, more than 40000 people have been killed and 90000 injured by the earthquake in Turkey.

(Catalogue of recent earthquake events in Turkey issued by China Seismological Bureau, shallow depth, all shallow earthquakes)

(The United States Geological Survey (USGS) released earthquake information in Turkey in the past month. A sphere corresponds to an earthquake, and the larger the radius of the sphere, the larger the magnitude of the corresponding earthquake. The sphere marked 1 represents the first strong earthquake, located at the border between Turkey and Syria; The sphere marked 2 represents the second strong earthquake) After the earthquake in Turkey, netizens who are good at discovering details quickly found out that as early as three days before the earthquake, some people made accurate predictions that there would be an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 in the region (south-central Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) sooner or later, which is completely consistent with the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that occurred on the border between Turkey and Syria on February 6.

(Frank Hoogerbees 'accurate predictions posted on social media, where the red circles are where he predicted the earthquake would occur)

(Popular comment under Twitter, affirming the publisher's approach to using planet positions for earthquake prediction) In his profile, Frank describes himself as a researcher and software programmer at SSGESOS (Solar System Geometry Survey). He has a keen interest in planetary science, especially knowledge related to the Earth. SSGEOS is an organization that uses the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, Earth, and other planets in the geometric system of solar systems to predict earthquakes. It argues that when the sun, moon, earth and other planets are in certain geometric positions, these special geometric structures will lead to increased seismic activity on earth, resulting in larger earthquakes.

(SSGESOS website home page, predicted that during February 16 to February 18 is very likely to occur large earthquake activity, but the prediction lacks the spatial position of one of the three elements of earthquake prediction time, space, intensity, not convincing) This "special celestial body position structure will lead to strange earth phenomenon" argument seems to be familiar, ancient China has been. "Seven stars in a row" was regarded as a symbol of disaster in ancient times.

Records of the "Seven Stars" first appeared in 206 BC, when the Qin Dynasty collapsed. After four years of struggle between Chu and Han, Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty. Years of war, the people live in poverty, we blame the disaster on the "seven stars," think it is God's punishment.

In fact,"seven stars in alignment" refers to the phenomenon that any seven stars in the planets, moon and sun in the solar system are arranged at a very small angle, giving observers on earth an intuitive feeling of seven stars connected together, which occurs once every 77 years on average.

(Schematic diagram of relative position of celestial bodies between solar systems, map source network)"Seven Stars Alignment" is just a special celestial geometric structure phenomenon, which links "Seven Stars Alignment" with disaster. It is a scapegoat that the ancients looked for under superstition when they encountered misfortune.

So is there any scientific basis for saying that a particular geometric distribution of celestial bodies triggers a major earthquake? Is it really possible to predict earthquakes accurately now?

The answer to both questions is no.

The scientists did consider the effect of the position of the celestial body on earthquake triggering on Earth. In the late stage of earthquake development, the crust is in a state of "tension," like an ammunition box full of fire. A little spark will trigger an explosion, and the tidal force of celestial bodies may act as this "Mars."

The tide-generating force of celestial bodies is related to the gravitational force between celestial bodies and the earth, and the calculation formula of gravitational force is:

Where G is the gravitational constant, M and m represent the masses of the two celestial bodies, and r is the distance between the two celestial bodies, which is proportional to the first power of the mass of the celestial body and inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

Because the Moon is close enough to Earth and the Sun is massive enough, both have a much greater tidal force on Earth than any other planet in the Solar System. When considering the tidal forces on the earth, we tend to consider only the tidal forces of the moon and sun on the earth, ignoring the gravitational effects of other planets.

(SSGESOS claims to have developed a complete "prediction" system that simulates and predicts earthquakes based on the positions of planets, moon, sun and earth in the solar system.) The lines of different colors in the figure represent the influence of different celestial bodies in the solar system on the seismicity of the earth. The higher the index corresponding to the ordinate of the line, the greater the influence on earthquake occurrence.) The tide-generating force of celestial bodies has the possibility of triggering earthquakes, but due to the complexity of crustal stress state and the diversity of relative position changes between celestial bodies, it is still unknown how many earthquakes can be triggered and what arrangement of celestial bodies must trigger earthquakes. Thus, the dazzling array of finely lined seismic-activity prediction maps published by SSGESOS may simply be the product of creativity and imagination.

The Turkish earthquake occurred near the Anatolian fault, which is the junction of the Arabian plate, Eurasian plate and African plate. Earthquake activity is frequent and has always been the focus of seismologists. Frank's tweet that "there will be a magnitude 7.5 earthquake here sooner or later" is more a coincidence than an accurate prediction. If he can specify the time in the prediction as "three days later" or "within a week," he can call it a true earthquake prediction.

Only the combination of earthquake time, spatial location and earthquake intensity can constitute a complete earthquake prediction.

At present, accurate earthquake prediction is still a difficult problem that we have not overcome. We know that the accumulation of crustal stress will cause rock fracture, but the specific focal mechanism and seismogenic process need further exploration.

Disaster is merciless, earthquake disaster is still a mountain on the way forward for mankind. Science and exploration are the best tools for climbing this mountain. One day we will reach the top and see a wider view.

References:

[1]China Seismological Bureau https://www.cea.gov.cn/

[2]United States Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/

[3]Ji Ce, Wu Kai, Luo Lei, et al. Statistical characteristics of global seismogenic time-celestial body position and its correlation with tide-generating force [J]. Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2021, 38 (05):632-641.

[4]Han Guihong, Li Jin, Zhang Zhiguang et al. Trigger effect of tide-generating force on significant earthquakes and its application in short-term and imminent prediction [J]. International Seismic Dynamics, 2017, No. 464 (08):121-122.

[5]Li Jin, Jiang Haikun. A review of the progress in the study of tide-triggered earthquakes [J]. Earthquake, 2011, 31 (04):36-47.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Stone Science Popularization Studio (ID: Dr__Stone), author: Ding Xixi

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