Earthquake Prediction, Going to the Dogs?

For years scientists have been trying to find a way to predict earthquakes with little success, one person has been studying how animals sense dangerous events such as earthquakes, tsunamis. etc and is trying to find out how they know or feel these potential disasters prior to their occurance.

Sounds trouble like

Scientists are coming round to the idea that animals can predict natural disaster, writes Matt Kaplan.

On THE morning of December 26, 2004, villagers from Bang Koey in Thailand noticed something strange. Buffalo grazing on the beach lifted their heads, pricked their ears and looked out to sea, then stampeded to the top of a nearby hill. For the baffled villagers who chose to follow them, it was a live-saving move. Minutes later, the tsunami struck.

Since then, there have been hundreds of reports of animals seemingly foretelling catastrophe - not just minutes, but sometimes hours and even days before it occurred. These include tales of bizarre behaviour by wild beasts including elephants, antelopes, bats, rats and flamingos, plus stories of dogs refusing to go for their usual morning walk.

So true, whenever a storm is coming, my animals go crazy.

If I remember correctly, it wasn't confirmed that animals do have an ability to predict earthquakes. However in this example I assume that either the animals heard the earthquake itself, as in this example it was a magnitude 9, so a lot of energy would be dissipated, so if a low frequency sound was heard by the animals, they would have been able to get away.

In a back of the envelope type calculation:

Tsunami approx 814km, at approx 250 m/s (normally said to be speed of a jet, this is for a 747) time = 54 minutes 16 seconds.

Sound, not exactly sure what to use, but with air being the medium perhaps, 593km at 340 m/s, time = 29 minutes 4 seconds.

Obviously this makes considerable assumptions about what the sound travels through, and when exactly the sound is generated. but it does show that if it was sound then it was definitely possible.

Sound from the tsunami as it approached and began to break approaching the coast would also be possible.

Edit: spelling.

[edit on 3-3-2007 by apex]

Good post Apex, in addition the fact that the Chinese use snakes for early warning, could it also be the "vibrations", either way it is good to know this, and I always wondered why my wife keeps us surrounded by pets.

I think I'll upgrade their menu after reading this article. I wouldn't want them to hold out on me due to a less than acceptable menu.

The actual vibrations from the quake, I have no idea, except if it were from a smaller magnitude fore shock, or some other thing, such as the tension building up and beginning to release?

Never heard of the use of snakes by the Chinese though.

Originally posted by apex

Never heard of the use of snakes by the Chinese though.

It is in the article linked to above, I had never heard of it myself but it sounds very interesting.

From the article;

realised it would reduce high-frequency sounds more than low-frequency ones.

What's more, dogs with smaller heads were almost twice as likely to behave strangely before the earthquake than those with larger heads.

This was particularly interesting, given that dogs with smaller heads tend to be more sensitive to high frequencies.

If it's high frequencies with dogs, that would possibly suggest that there is some sort of high frequency stresses in the rocks. This may not be what gives all animals (well those which notice something) a warning but it is definitely interesting.

It may depend on the cause of the quake as well though, for example warnings of transverse fault type quakes may be entirely different to those from a subduction zone quake.

A possibility if there is only a few seconds, up to a minute or so before the actual quake, is that animals notice the pressure waves before the shear waves get there (which are the main part of a quake).

This diagram shows how a Richter Magnitude is calculated, but it shows the delay quite well.




This is quite interesting, it shows there is definitely something in this IMO:

There have also been examples where authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.

Source

It was later discovered, though, that a rare series of small tremors, called foreshocks, occurred before the large quake hit the city.

That doesn't mean the animals didn't detect anything though?

too late to edit, best to view that in light mode.

Anyone know of something I've missed that animals could notice?