http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...on_030915.html

The relationship of earthquakes to ionospheric phenomena is not totally far-fetched. It has been seen in Alaskan earthquakes. Studied by folks like Mike Kelly at Cornell.
Also an hour before the largest earthquake in Hawaii on the big island in the late 1960s the ionospheric went transparent and screwed up the Loran-C system.
Folks at Aerospace Corp have studied low frequency radio phenomena associated with Californian quakes and then there's also lots of reports of "earthquake lights".

I'd be careful if I were in Tokyo.

I started about this subject here. As you seem to know more about it, I'll make a pointer to your thread.

The questions is, how strong the correlation between the effects is. Are these changes only observed before earthquakes or also on plenty of other occasions?

Whitley Strieber isn't always that reliable, but I think he's got something here:
http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=1198


And then there's this with lots of documentation:
http://www.earthquakewarning.org/tkyo93.html

and this quote from a Tulane geology course covering earthquake prediction http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol...&cntrl.htm

"Unusual Radio Waves - Just prior to the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989, some researchers reported observing unusual radio waves. Where these were generated and why, is not yet known, but research is continuing."

Interesting. Is it the result of the molten/gaseous metals being vented to the surface/atmosphere by the volcanoes/faults? Or is there some other idea?

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I'm having a hard time finding exactly what the astronomer is measuring and what kind of instruments he is using.

The information John supplied is very interesting, thanks.

Of course Tokyo is overdue for a major quake. What I'm curious about is how this guy has pinpointed the location from whatever he is measuring.

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There is some site from googling that has maps for determining the earthquake,etc. It is highly suspect, and seems to be pretty speculative theory. I can understand how he might do some triangulation to get a general location, but how does he correlate his radio observations with the magnitude? I would think you'd need a database of intensity of radio disturbances versus earthquake magnitude. He says mag 7 Tuesday 9/16/03 or Wednesday 9/17/03.

Well, we'll see tomorrow or the next day, won't we?

I'm not so sure. A couple years ago I spent about a year in Tokyo. In that time I felt 4 or 5 quakes that were pretty noticeable. (Nothing like the Northridge quake, I assure you!) This would seem to indicate that the seismic pressure is being relieved all the time, reducing the chance of a monster quake. It's definitely a highly active seismic area though. When that guy said Tokyo's ready for a magnitude 8 (the newer buildings and structures anyway), I believe him. I've seen how serious they are there with structural design of buildings and bridges. In the circumstance, overkill may not be such a bad approach (and that pretty much describes it).

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I saw the brightest Aurora I've ever seen last night around 12:20AM.. They were all over the sky and very bright, mostly green with some purple. *gulps* Alaska is supposed to be overdue too.. And the last one was 9.2. -Colt

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Very Interesting.....especially about the correlation to unusual electrical activity.
However, I'd like to see some explainations of possible causal agents and triggering mechanisms for earthquakes. Seems like we ought to have been able to come up with something definitive by now. :-k
Any Ideas? :-?

G^2

It was the aurora, Colt, not EQ lights. We are currently experiencing a strong magnetic storm, G2, from a coronal hole solar wind. :roll:

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As of 08:00 PDT, Japan's seismological activity is eerily quiet.

Historically, they are overdue. The EQ activity you speak of is normal background activity and the larger quakes still occur. I'll find a source and edit it in.

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There WAS a 4.3 nearby. Got the date right, but not the magnitude or exact location.
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_yval.html

Hokkaido is a LONG way from Tokyo.

I was going to say, it's not really hard to "predict" an earthquake in a high seismic area. California, for example, has hundreds if not thousands of small quakes every day. A 4.3 is fairly noticeable, but I notice this recent Hokkaido quake was at a depth of over 200 km. That really reduces the impact.

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He's bracketing it. Another one, same magnitude also about 400 miles from Tokyo, but in the other direction. This one was even deeper.

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_ywal.html

During my 40 years in Germany, I experienced two earthquakes. On two journeys, I spent a total of six weeks in Japan and experienced four earthquakes.

Ha!

I grew up in Southern California. Through the years there have been some pretty big ones. The Northridge quake was awesome. Picture yourself sleeping in your ground floor bedroom when two freight trains going 80 mph go flying past in opposite directions about 2 feet from your windows. Not only is there a lot of shaking, but it's LOUD. And this was about 30 miles from the epicenter.

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Yeah&lt; i've been in SoCal my whole life. The quakes are initially scary, but if you aren't near the epicenter, they are actually kinda fun.

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BINGO almost. 2 1/2 days late and 1 1/2 magnitudes short. But close.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...n_earthquake_1

Interesting. He was very close. Or was he very lucky?

Lucky! Besides, 5.5 is a far cry from 7.0

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5.2 according to the NEIC.

I knew someone was going to bring that little tremor up here when I saw the news showing a few shaking cameras in Tokyo. So I prepared. Here is the historical seismicity of the area of the quake. The star in all the illustrations is the quake that just occurred. The gazillion other dots are the other quakes. :P

http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/bull...ic_yyaa_h.html

The only difference in that quake and the thousands of others in the same area was that the news managed to get a few shaky camera shots to put on the air.

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A google search for 'tokyo overdue earthquake' got many news stories about the regularity of large Tokyo quakes but I had a hard time finding the scientific data. This was the best source.

Newsweek story about the science

I'm sure the science is out there. Every 60 years seems to be the historical timing with the last big quake in 1923, they are overdue.

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Well,
the news just now said Earthquake in Japan!! reported, 22.05 uk time

Pete

Hokkaido is a long way from Tokyo, isn't it? I mean, besides being a week or so late. Should be interesting to watch future predictions though.

USGS
has it at 8.0.


Anyone know where David Hall is in Japan? Hope he is ok. Also other posters here that are from Japan. I know of at least one more other than David.

His info says Osaka, which would be hundreds of miles away. Osaka, Tokyo and other major cities are not near this quake.

Wow, You know it was a big earthquake when an AFTERSHOCK is 7.4. This list says the original was 8.3!
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/bulletin.html

No wonder that he could detect precursor signals from as far away a Tokyo.

There is only (on average) one earthquake per year at 8.0 or higher. Anywhere in the world. Even though he missed by a bit in terms of distance, it's close enough to make you wonder. Again, either very lucky or very good.

I am more inclined to think he's on to something. Of course, more data is needed...

http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/bull...ic_zebr_h.html
Scroll down to the last picture. It shows all the quakes mag 7 or greater since 1900. There are 3 mag 8s and a whole bunch of mag 7s. It is such an active seismic zone you cannot rule out coincidence.

Still, a magnitude 8 is impressive. But I want to see the guy's data. What was he measuring and how did he determine it was geological in origin?

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David Hall is in Osaka and there wasn't much damage in Hokkaido. The quake was deep and offshore. My son's Japanese teacher's family is in the quake region so we will be talking to her soon, but I'm pretty sure they are all OK.

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