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| A magnitude 7.3 quake in Landers, Calif., in 1992 killed one person. (Picture from: http://www.livescience.com/) |
Some animals reportedly showed strange behavior before the earthquake. The dog continued to bark or frogs disappear from the pond. Actually, what caught their senses but escape from the human senses?
That question makes a group of physicists at the University of Virginia American rock and mashing the gas gauge in a laboratory experiment designed to mimic an earthquake and see what might trigger the strange behavior of animals.
What they found was astonishing. Crush rock they turned out to produce the gas ozone at levels 100 times higher than the smog that blanketed the city of Los Angeles.
"Even the smallest rock fragments produce ozone," said Catherine Dukes, a member of the research team. "The next question, whether the gas was also detected in the environment?"
If the answer is "true", the signal ozone as seen by the Dukes and his team may be used to give early warning in anticipation of an earthquake that will happen.
Dukes team tested several types of metamorphic and igneous rocks in the laboratory, including basalt, granite, gneiss, and Rhyolite. Various types of rocks are up 95 percent of the earth's crust.
Researchers suspect it is caused by differences in electrical charge between the surface of a rock fracture. Electrons from the surface of the rock-charged oxygen molecules break down in the air, which reassemble to form ozone at ground level. "It looks like a mini lightning," said Dukes.
While the team of University of Virginia study measured levels of ozone in the ground, another group of scientists discovered the existence of elevated levels of ozone in the atmosphere when a large earthquake.
After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Ramesh Singh, a geophysicist from Chapman University, uses satellites to detect increased levels of ozone. "What they see on a small scale in the laboratory may be able to explain the measurements that we obtained via satellite," said Singh. *** [LIVESCIENCE | KORAN TEMPO 3728]
That question makes a group of physicists at the University of Virginia American rock and mashing the gas gauge in a laboratory experiment designed to mimic an earthquake and see what might trigger the strange behavior of animals.
What they found was astonishing. Crush rock they turned out to produce the gas ozone at levels 100 times higher than the smog that blanketed the city of Los Angeles.
"Even the smallest rock fragments produce ozone," said Catherine Dukes, a member of the research team. "The next question, whether the gas was also detected in the environment?"
If the answer is "true", the signal ozone as seen by the Dukes and his team may be used to give early warning in anticipation of an earthquake that will happen.
Dukes team tested several types of metamorphic and igneous rocks in the laboratory, including basalt, granite, gneiss, and Rhyolite. Various types of rocks are up 95 percent of the earth's crust.
Researchers suspect it is caused by differences in electrical charge between the surface of a rock fracture. Electrons from the surface of the rock-charged oxygen molecules break down in the air, which reassemble to form ozone at ground level. "It looks like a mini lightning," said Dukes.
While the team of University of Virginia study measured levels of ozone in the ground, another group of scientists discovered the existence of elevated levels of ozone in the atmosphere when a large earthquake.
After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Ramesh Singh, a geophysicist from Chapman University, uses satellites to detect increased levels of ozone. "What they see on a small scale in the laboratory may be able to explain the measurements that we obtained via satellite," said Singh. *** [LIVESCIENCE | KORAN TEMPO 3728]
