Just wondering if anyone is aware if any serious investigation has been carried out on the possibility that earthquake lights are a discharge plasma generated through piezoelectric effect by earth stress events.
mysterious lights also appeared around the quake's epicentre near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire.
One witness described how a grapefruit-sized glowing sphere appeared in her bedroom and then went out like a light. "This thing seemed to be coming across the room straight at me. I was very frightened," she told the Louth Leader. Another person described flashes like car headlights at her window, and others spoke of lightning flashes after the quake. However, there was no lightning activity at the time of the quake.
In fact, there have been many reports of "earthquake lights" throughout history. Residents of Tangshan in China, for example, were awakened one night in July 1976 by bright flashes in the sky. Two days later an earthquake registering 7.8 on the Richter scale killed 240,000 people and destroyed the city. And a Japanese scientist took photographs of balls of light and red streaks in the sky during a swarm of earthquakes in Matsushiro between 1965 and 1967.
One explanation for his phenomenon is that the electrical properties of rocks may change under severe stress before or during a quake. This may generate changes in the electrical behaviour of the atmosphere, ionising the air and producing glowing lights.
davesmith_au
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
Check out this story Ben, written by my oldest brother. It's a very real story about an earthquake which happened near the town where I lived when I was only 7 years old. Whilst the whole piece is quite entertaining, the most interesting part, and very relevant to your ponderings, is this bit:
Phil Smith's 'The Earthquake' wrote: ... I still couldn't figure out how a road that had been perfectly okay yesterday could have been so badly damaged by this morning. As I stood there wondering about this, there was a very deep and dreadful roaring sound which came from beneath my feet and the ground started to rock and shiver just as it had during Saturday night's earthquake. This was accompanied by flashes like lightning from the broken ground where the road had collapsed. To this day I am still not sure about this ... was my mind playing some sort of tricks on me to get me out of there, or did these flashes really happen? As rocks and stones started to tumble down the mountainside and land all around me, I leapt back on the Triumph, spun it around, and headed off flat-out down the hill to get clear of the mountain. Later that day, when scientists arrived to invesigate the earthquakes, I learned that there had indeed been two periods of aftershock activity recorded that morning and the first of these must have caused my "moving humps" which I saw near Boolara and the landslide which had taken the foundations out from underneath the road where I had had my roller coaster ride, and the second had caused the dreadful noise and rockfall which occurred while I was standing looking at the damage caused by the first one. ...
(emphasis mine DS)
Fascinating stuff.
Cheers, Dave Smith.
MGmirkin
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
There were a couple good old threads on earthquake precursors, earthquake lights, shaking but no earthquake, etc. Perhaps someone wants to google them and resurrect them hereabouts?
I've saved them to disk, but don't have time to do the resurrecting, ATM... Need sleepz...
~Michael Gmirkin
Ben D
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
Hi Dave, that is an amazing story from Phil,... the mind boggles! To be up and travelling at that early hour and to arrive at the precise place at the right time to witness/experience the extraordinary event seems like...somehow planned! And yes, the 'flashes like lightning from the broken ground where the road had collapsed' is evidence that the plasma phenomena is associated with the earth. I have done some internet searches to see if there is any formal scientific opinion on this matter and though it appears that there are some qualified people who are linking earthquake lights to piezoelectric effect, so far I have only found them on somewhat ditsy web sites.
Sadly lacking in technical detail. Just mentions that earthquake lights are "thought to be caused by an electro-magnetic discharge from the movement of the earth's plates."
I think I had also mentioned some anecdotal case of dunes spewing coronal discharges (basically lightning or streamers) out their tops?
Cheers, ~Michael Gmirkin
StefanR
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
I think I had also mentioned some anecdotal case of dunes spewing coronal discharges (basically lightning or streamers) out their tops?
Most probably.
That was in the waterspout-thread for sure, I remember that. It was mentioned the second time by me at the end in that thread when (forgot his name) gave a nicely written article showing the kinetic and electromagnetic factors involved in the formation of tornado's.
Are you reviving that thread?
MGmirkin
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
StefanR wrote:
I think I had also mentioned some anecdotal case of dunes spewing coronal discharges (basically lightning or streamers) out their tops?
Most probably.
That was in the waterspout-thread for sure, I remember that. It was mentioned the second time by me at the end in that thread when (forgot his name) gave a nicely written article showing the kinetic and electromagnetic factors involved in the formation of tornado's.
Are you reviving that thread?
I think you mean, this article by Charles Chandler?
Still not sure how to go about best resurrecting the old threads. I've got the entire Waterspouts, et al thread archived off Google. Now it's just figuring out what to do with it all! I'm thinking static archive, if possible. As resurrecting the # of threads I've saved would be a monumental undertaking if copying/pasting individually... I'm probably going to undertake a project in the next week or so to try to set up a static archive with D.Smith, and see if we can get a good portion of the old threads available online again, even if only static.
~Michael Gmirkin
StefanR
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
Charles' paper was indeed the one. (apologies to Charles )
The bit we maybe both are thinking of (page 8 of the thread):
p. 257
Quote: Sparks stood straight up from the tops of gypsum sand dunes in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, as a thunderstorm passed overhead. Their properties were measured by instruments set up in 1971 by A. K. Kamra, who found that friction of the wind and blowing sand generated astonishingly high static voltages. (Nature, 240: 143-44, November 17, 1972)
A caption to an included image wrote: The dunes at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico are between 10 and 60 feet high. They are formed and re-formed by wind. Friction of the windblown gypsum sand creates static electricity.
Thanks for the links friends, I now have a better feel for the 'state of play' on this subject. I will continue to stay on the lookout for any new developments.
MGmirkin
Re: Earthquake Lights = Plasma
StefanR wrote: Charles' paper was indeed the one. (apologies to Charles )
The bit we maybe both are thinking of (page 8 of the thread):
p. 257
Quote: Sparks stood straight up from the tops of gypsum sand dunes in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, as a thunderstorm passed overhead.
"Researchers say they have found a close link between electrical disturbances on the edge of our atmosphere and impending quakes on the ground below. Just such a signal was spotted in the days leading up to the recent devastating event in China. They have teamed up with experts in the UK to investigate a possible space-based early warning system."
"On a significant number of occasions, satellites have picked up disturbances in this part of the atmosphere 100-600km above areas that have later been hit by earthquakes."
Interesting piece of news i feel. One question that pops to mind is, if Earthquakes have these electrical precursors in the ionosphere, if one were to recreate them using high-power ionospheric heaters, would an Earthquake then occur below on the ground?
Faderbaby
Re: Earthquakes - Electrical Precursors in Ionosphere
Reading that article I noticed distinct similarities with the Iopnosperic Plasmas section of The Condign Report. This seems like a case where EU theory (not credited as such) didn't conflict with an existing theory (ie. it was a specific theory that had no competition) and could therefore turn into actual Missions, which is what NASA does (create Missions). They propose to work along with a British Satellite company to develope an early warning system. Sounds good! Sounds like something the public would get excited about.
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