Seismo-electromagnetics

Seismo-electromagnetics is the study of electromagnetic phenomena associated with seismic activity such as earthquakes and volcanos, and also the use of electromagnetic methods in seismology such as magnetotellurics. Links between the electromagnetic fields in the lithosphere and those in the atmosphere and ionosphere are also studied. Earthquake prediction is one of the aims of this area of research.

One site of current research is China, where a satellite launch is planned for 2014, to provide data from ionospheric phenomena for comparison with seismo-electromagnetic phenomena on the ground. Such a link is partially borne out in the current literature, with ionospheric phenomena already shown to precede seismic phenomena by a few hours to days. The network would potentially show whether such ionospheric phenomena are sourced from ground electrical phenomena.

See also

• Electrical resistivity tomography
• Induced polarization
• Magnetometer
• Seismoelectrical Method
• Telluric current
• VAN method

Further reading

• Seismo electromagnetics: lithosphere-atmosphere-lonosphere coupling, Masashi Hayakawa, Oleg A. Molchanov, TerraPub, 2002, ISBN 978-4-88704-130-1
• On the reported magnetic precursor of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Jeremy N. Thomas, Jeffrey J. Love, Malcolm J.S. Johnston, Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 173, 207-215, doi:10.1016/j.pepi.2008.11.014, 2009.
• Ionospheric precursors of earthquakes, Sergey Pulinets, Kirill Boyarchuk, Springer, 2004, ISBN 978-3-540-20839-6
• Electromagnetic Phenomenon Related to Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Birbal Singh, Narosa Pub. House, 2008, 17 Jun 2009, ISBN 978-81-7319-858-8
• A Critical review of VAN: earthquake prediction from seismic electrical signals, James Lighthill, World Scientific, 1996, ISBN 978-981-02-2542-1
• Monitoring of ULF (ultra-low-frequency) Geomagnetic Variations Associated with Earthquakes, Masashi Hayakawa, Katsumi Hattori and Kenji Ohta, Sensors 2007, 7, 1108–1122
• Pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies registered by continuous GPS TEC measurements, J. Y. Liu, Y. J. Chuo, S. J. Shan, Y. B. Tsai, Y. I. Chen, S. A. Pulinets, and S. B. Yu, Annales Geophysicae (2004) 22: 1585–1593