Posts Tagged ‘seismology’
A Pair of Tiny Satellites Aims to Scan For and Predict Impending Earthquakes
TwinSat, as the project is known, involves two satellites cruising a few hundred miles apart in a polar orbit. One satellite will be roughly the size of an old vacuum-tube style television set and the other smaller than a shoebox.
The duo will be looking for subtle but detectable electromagnetic signals that can be gleaned from the upper atmosphere. These signals are the result of stress building up in the Earth, slight changes in the Earth’s magnetism that could be the telltale signs that tremors are imminent. These kinds of signals were picked up in the days leading up to the devastating Haiti ‘quake last year, though they weren’t parsed and analyzed until later.
Scientists think that if they knew what kinds of electromagnetic signals predate earthquakes, they could use them as predictors of when and where big ‘quakes are likely to strike perhaps days or weeks beforehand. Of course, the only way to categorize those signals is to put sensors in place that can identify them and wait for earthquakes to happen.
That’s TwinSat’s role; the tandem satellite setup will monitor seismically active zones like Iceland and eastern Russia for the signs that predate earthquake activity. If it works--and that’s a significant “if”--an array of the sats could be deployed to monitor the entire Earth, ensuring disasters like the Haiti earthquake exact a minimal human toll. TwinSat will launch in 2015.
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Top Italian Scientists Who Failed to Predict 2009 Earthquake Now Face Manslaughter Charges
"Damned if you don't" is the situation that seven of Italy's top seismologists now find themselves in -- the scientists face manslaughter charges for failing to predict the April 2009 earthquake that struck the town of L'Aquila in central Italy.
In late March 2009, tremors were recorded in the surrounding region, resulting in a magnitude-4.0 earthquake on March 30. The following day, the seven seismologists were in L'Aquila attending a meeting of the Major Risks Committee, a group that advises Italy's Civil Protection Agency on natural hazards risks. At a press conference following the quake, committee member Bernardo di Bernardinis told reporters, "the scientific community tells us there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favorable." But on April 6, a magnitude-6.3 quake struck, killing more than 300 people and leaving about 65,000 homeless.
Local citizens claimed they had been planning to leave their homes after the smaller quake, but had changed their minds after the committee's comments. In August 2009, the citizens filed a formal request for investigation, and earlier this month the chief prosecutor stated that his office had enough information to indict the individuals named in the case.
Nearly 4,000 researchers around the world have come to the seismologists' defense, signing a letter to Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, urging him to compel decision makers to focus on hazards mitigation and earthquake preparedness rather than holding scientists responsible for doing something that is not yet possible. Despite extensive research efforts by seismologists in recent decades, earthquakes cannot yet be accurately predicted to occur on a specific day, or even in a specific month.