Some of the most interesting information about earthquakes and their manifestations are coming from
individuals that have academic disciplines outside of the geologists that have traditionally researched this
phenomena.
Changing the mindset of an academic discipline seemingly takes decades as the tenured professors
have the capability to squelch changes they refuse to accept. Who would have thought some 40 years
ago that an earthquake could have a significant effect on anything well above the earths' surface, other
than raising a bit of dust.
Precursors to the 1960 Chilean and 1964 Alaska earthquakes were detected by radio operators. A number
of radio services also noted the loss of signals that required ionospheric "skip" during the earthquakes
themselves. They did not know at the time an earthquake had occurred, but when the time and duration
of the "main event" was correlated with the time of the signal losses the association was obvious.
Although the pre-quake "emanations" created an unusual signature in the ionosphere, I cannot find
any references that this phenomena is being actively researched.
Strange animal behavior before earthquakes and the so-called earthquake lights seen in
conjunction with earthquakes was relegated to the pseudo-sciences (they were not observed using
scientifically trained observers nor were rigorous scientific methods utilized) and were not seriously
investigated by the academics who made their livings in the geologic sciences.
You can spend weeks going through the information about earthquakes that is in the Hypographies
posted by Tormond in Sept. 2001,
Earthquakes
One of the best summaries is the one titled, "Earthquake Prediction ",
Prediction
"One well-known successful earthquake prediction was for the Haicheng, China earthquake of 1975, ..."
Notice they used animal behavior as one of the precusors. One could write a thesis on animal behavior
before an earthquake, but I would recommend it be done by an someone in the Agricultural Sciences,
specifically Dairy Science. Students of Dairy Science know that cows react adversely to stray electrical
currents, refusing to drop their milk and doing strange prancing in the milking parlor or associated pasture
areas if a "stray potential" exists. The NASA report linked in a previous post indicates that the moving
electrical charges will hit the surface. "When charges flow, they constitute an electric current." I will
guarantee that electric current flow at the surface will have measureable potential differences over a
span of a couple feet or even less. Dairy farmers don't walk around in their bare feet, but the cows
sure do, as do all animals. I have read interesting reports on electrical problems at dairies and how the
cows reacted.
There are rational explanations for all anomalous events, and all it takes in many cases to identify the
causative characteristics is having the research performed by an individual with a multidisciplinary
education, or one that is not adverse to working with individuals with expertise in other scientific
disciplines, things they do not understand. Putting it all together is the real challenge.
