EARLY WARNING: As little as seconds advance warning of earthquakes could save lives by prompting automatic shutdown of dangerous infrastructure, such as gas pipelines.
Image: ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
When an earthquake strikes, seismic waves spread from the epicenter, following the patchwork quilt of faults and geology in California, for example. The violent shaking these waves may trigger can topple buildings, rupture water mains and wreak havoc on industrial infrastructure. But by making quick computer analyses in seismographic stations near the epicenter, warnings can be relayed in seconds, allowing people to take safety precautions and critical infrastructure to be shut down, scientists reported this week at the fall conference of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
"What we're doing with early warning is predicting the ground motion after we know the earthquake is underway," says seismologist Richard Allen of the University of California, Berkeley. "Any computerized system can start to do things very rapidly, rapidly enough so we can implement our response before the ground stops shaking."
Such a system, developed by Allen and his colleagues, is currently being tested in California's roughly 300 seismometer stations and provided 10 seconds of warning for the San Jose temblor that measured 5.4 on the Richter scale on October 30.
Japan and Europe already have such warning systems, which have proved useful in preventing fires, one of the major secondary impacts of powerful earthquakes. "Actions that can be made to prevent fires is just to have [an] automatic system to switch off gas supply, also electricity," says geophysicist Paolo Gasparini of the University of Naples–Federico II of the systems operating in that Italian city as well as in Istanbul and Bucharest.
The Japanese system, which began operation on October 1, has already provided warnings from two large quakes. "In both cases, the information was disseminated successfully," says seismologist Osamu Kamigaichi of the Japan Meteorological Agency. "False alarms—very, very few."
But Allen says that California would have to build an additional 600 stations and upgrade its existing network to create a robust early warning system for the state, which could cost as much as $30 million.
Such a system could provide as much as a minute's notice for the Bay Area, for example, if an earthquake struck in the Mendocino triple junction, a highly active seismic conjunction where three plates meet off the northern California coast. "The final goals of the project are to assess the amount of warning time a system like this could provide and look forward to what might be necessary," Allen says. "Even if it's a very small amount of time, it could be useful."
See what we're tweeting about
5 Comments
Add CommentI think it can be used in Geophysics
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswouldn't turning the gas off like that mean that when a person's pilot light goes out, when the gas is switched on, people's houses will fill with gas and create a greater fire/explosion hazard anyways?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is possible to develop early warning system of Earthquake b
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisy analysing the earthquake prone active fault areas and influence of the change in magnetic field during Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun and other Cosmic factor to change the electron flux and magnetic field of the Sun-earth environment.
References:
Mukherjee, S. (2006). Earthquake Prediction. Published by Brill Academic Publishers Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden (The Netherlands) & Boston (USA). ISBN-10: 90 6764 450 1 and ISBN-13 (i) 978 9067644 50
www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=10&mcid=8&pid=25855
Cited in Science Journal on 9th March 2007. http://www.sciencemag.org/books/
(Citation: New Concepts In Global Tectonics December 2006 ID LINDLEY, G SCALERA - quake.exit.com)
Mukherjee, S. (2007). Changes in Heliophysical parameter influence on Environment of the Earth. Bull.Astr.Soc.India (2007) 35,1-7
Mukherjee, S. (2001). Space based early warning system to understand seism tectonics. GSI Spl.Pub.No.65 (II),
S. (2001). Seismogenic potentiality of Delhi using remote sensing, soil geochemistry and geophysical data, Indian Geological Congress, Vol.2, No.1 (Spl.Vol.on Seismicity) pp289-297. Research Highlight in Earth System science, DST, GOI. dst.gov.in/scientific-programme/ser-pac-es.htm
30 million is nothing for a CA investment. Northridge earthquake alone cost 14 BILLION
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis idea is ok but what you need here is a medium that accelerates the effects of a pending earthquake...say an insulator that takes out the distortions of time and resistence ....a medium that sends signals faster to the surface computers. I propose a heavy ,slightly radiated gas . As a event begins to gear up, the gas medium changes the radiation readings without other interferences. Read the changes in the radiation levels and you get an accurate and quick reading as to depth and severity of an event. Another method,which I just thought of is to magnitize (em) the fault line from one end to the other. Any anomilities in the line will indicate an event.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this