Thread: Earthquakes and animals behavior

Hi,
As we know animals often change behavior before an earthquake happens. Many people say this is because animals are more sensitive to the small shaking, but honestly I doubt it. In fact I heared about anomals that change behavior some hours before the event, though the primary wave starts 30 seconds or less before. I' m thinking the reason may be the geomagnetic anomaly, since the brain works by electric signals.
That is a modest opinion, since I'm not a science expert. I just have some basic knowledge in hobby electronic, so I just say that electric circuits are often sensitive to magnetic waves. What do you think about?

It is an interesting problem. I lean towards your explanation: some change in the electromagnetic field that is detectable by some animals. However, until we have better observations of the behaviour and a plausible detailed mechanism, we shouldn't rush to a conclusion.

There is a popular article on the subject here from National Geoggraphic.

It' s true. In fact animals can change behavior for different reasons. Then we can not "traslate" their behavior in earthquake prediction.
I read about geomagnetic field detectors working in Japan and I visited online data.
The strong earthquake occurred on 11 march was preceded by a geomagnetic anomaly. But a geomagnetic anomaly is often a missed alarm (visit the links ). So I think we can not make reliable predictions at the current time. Hopefully in the next years...

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/...ter=no&view=28
http://maestro.haarp.alaska.edu/cgi-...20101215&Bx=on

I think the two likely candidates for detection would be electromagnetic and infrasound. The later I think explains a many instances because it tends to travel faster than noise above the surface and many animals (e.g., deer, elephants, dogs(slightly)) have better low-end hearing than humans.

Well that and most city-dwelling humans never refined their capability to make the most of their senses. Hunter gatherer society humans are a lot more in tune with their natural surroundings in a similar way that I "see" fish before most others from a lifetime of fly fishing.

Some days ago I found an article about infrasound
http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc...ml?bypassSSO=1

Then wouldn't a room full of bats be able to beat out any modern day earthquake warning hardware we have?

Originally Posted by TeslaG

Then wouldn't a room full of bats be able to beat out any modern day earthquake warning hardware we have?

Probably, but they are such deceitful little buggers you would never know if they were just winding you up. :wink: