Earthquakes Can Be Measured Before Its Arrival

Major earthquake’s magnitude can be measured quickly. The new analysis of 2011’s earthquake which happened in Japan was researched by Paris Diderot University and California Institute of Technology. The changes in gravity can give quick information about the earthquakes. Instantaneous gravitational disturbance can be recorded before the seismic waves that seismologists can detect.

As earthquake drastically changes the equilibrium of forces on earth and ejects seismic waves whose consequences can be disastrous. These waves disturb the earth’s gravity field, which produces different signals. Researchers said that earthquakes are not like tremor waves which are produced at speeds between 3 and 10 km/sec, it’s like moving at a speed of light. They said that seismic waves can be detected by seismometers two minutes earlier before it arrives, at the station which is located 1,000 km from the epicentre. When the research was started, researchers observed that the signals they got from the data which was given by 10 seismometers, that’s located from 500 to 3,000 km from epicentre of the 2011 Japanese earthquake. Then researchers explained that those signals have 2 effects, which are:

1. The Gravity change that occurred at seismometer’s location, which changed the equilibrium position of the instrument’s mass.
2. It’s indirect, that the gravity change everywhere on the earth, which moves the equilibrium of the forces and produces new seismic waves that reaches the seismometer.

By: Srishti Sharma

Content: Hindustan Times