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

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

We often compare the earth to a mother, but our "mother" seems to have a bad temper. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods. She loses her temper from time to time. Among them, the earthquake may cause the greatest harm to us. In the 20th century, more than half of the deaths caused by natural disasters were caused by earthquakes. If we can deal with it well in advance, it is possible to minimize the loss. For this reason, human beings have been using various methods to try to predict earthquakes before they occur.

(by Mei Lin / tr. by Robert Taylor)

For decades, people have been trying to use various methods to predict the occurrence of earthquakes. Moreover, there have been examples of so-called "successful prediction", but we do not seem to have made much progress in predicting earthquakes.

Is it true that earthquakes cannot be predicted? Not long ago, more than 20,000 people were killed in a major earthquake in Turkey. Three days before the Turkish earthquake, a so-called Dutch "scientist" predicted the earthquake, and after the first earthquake, he predicted a second earthquake. The time and place of both predictions are quite accurate, making him a new online celebrity on social media.

However, if we analyze it from a scientific point of view, the so-called prediction of the Dutch "scientist" is only a reasonable guess based on existing scientific theories, because the area he predicted to occur is located in the earthquake zone. and it's at the junction of the three plates. Coupled with the vague time statement of the "scientist", he said that "an earthquake will occur in this area sooner or later". Anyone who knows some general knowledge of earthquakes can come to the conclusion that the geographical location of this area does determine that an earthquake will occur here "sooner or later". Coincidentally, an earthquake really happened here three days later. We can only sigh that this "scientist" is really lucky.

Let's get back to the point. at present, the attempts taken by scientists to predict earthquakes mainly start from the following aspects.

The first is statistics. Scientists will count the occurrence of earthquakes around the world, especially in earthquake hot spots, within a certain period of time, and use the method of statistical analysis to calculate the probability and regularity of earthquakes in various places. After all, this is a statistical analysis, affected by the data and statistical time, the statistical results we get may not be accurate, because compared with the geological period of hundreds of millions of years, the time of all our data and statistics is too limited.

The second is the precursors of earthquakes. We may already know that some animals react abnormally before an earthquake. For example, in winter, hibernating snakes suddenly climb out of the cave in large numbers; domestic chickens, ducks, geese and dogs get restless, which may be the harbinger of an earthquake. Because the controllability of animals is very poor, and we do not have a particularly in-depth understanding of the response of animals to earthquakes, so there is a lot of uncertainty in using this method to predict earthquakes.

Before the occurrence of earthquakes was related to cosmic rays, scientists' attempts and studies to predict earthquakes were carried out around the earth itself, with little effect. Up to now, we do not have any reliable method to predict earthquakes. If we look beyond the earth, there may be new discoveries.

Recently, a joint research team of scientists from Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Israel, Spain, Russia and other countries has found that over the past 60 years, there is a significant correlation between the average variation of secondary cosmic ray flux measured on Earth and global seismicity.

Scientists have made statistical analysis on the secondary cosmic ray data measured on the earth, as well as the records of earthquakes with magnitude 5 or above around the world, and found that the above significant correlation. And the cosmic ray changes two weeks earlier than seismicity.

Perhaps some partners will ask whether such research results are accidental, because scientists happen to discover this so-called "correlation". To this end, scientists have done further research, they found that the correlation is also cyclical. In other words, the correlation changes over time, and the period of change is roughly the same as that of the sun. Such a strong regularity also proves that the correlation between the changes of secondary cosmic rays and seismicity is reliable, so we may predict the occurrence of earthquakes by measuring the changes of secondary cosmic rays 14 days before the occurrence of earthquakes.

Why are earthquakes originating in the interior of the earth associated with cosmic rays from space? Earthquakes come from activities in the interior of the earth, while cosmic rays come from space. Why is there such a significant correlation between these two seemingly unrelated phenomena? Scientists believe that the movement of mass in the earth's interior, such as the movement of plates, changes the earth's magnetic and gravitational fields.

Compared with the gravitational field, the change of the magnetic field spreads to the earth's crust faster and extends to the atmosphere near the earth, resulting in changes in secondary cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The change of the gravitational field is later than that of the magnetic field to the crust, and the change of the gravitational field is the cause of the earthquake. Therefore, we can detect the changes of secondary cosmic rays before the earthquake, and then predict the occurrence of the earthquake.

As for the periodicity of the correlation between the two, scientists speculate that this may be due to the periodicity of solar activity. The periodic variation of solar activity makes the variation of secondary cosmic rays show periodicity, so the correlation between secondary cosmic rays and seismicity also changes periodically.

The study is still in its infancy, and the phenomena found do not understand the mechanism. Moreover, if we can use cosmic rays to predict earthquakes, scientists do not know whether this method is used to predict earthquakes in a particular region or on a global scale. However, this research is a good start, and maybe we have really found a reliable new direction in earthquake prediction.

References:

Observation of large scale precursor correlations between cosmic rays and earthquakes with a periodicity similar to the solar cycle-ScienceDirect

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.