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+--- Thread: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far (/showthread.php?tid=194)
vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Duffy - 01-25-2015
Hello all,
First of all I'm a newbe, a non-scientist nor an accademic of any kind so forgive me if my dialog is a little basic. I'm a semi-retired landscape contractor by trade but in my spare time I'm an amateur/backyard astronomer with visual and ccd observation as my main interest. A couple of years ago I decided to try radio astronomy and started by constructing a SID detector (Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance)for monitoring solar activity,this worked well for a while registering CME's,proton and electron storms and solar wind instabilities. Then two months into this project my monitor registered a large disturbance which I later linked serendipitously to a mag 8.1 Earthquake near the Solomon Islands (which occurred 17 hours after the SID recording). Since then I have registered 23 quakes in 2013 which at the time did'nt retain the data as I was'nt aware of any significance, and 15 quakes in 2014 with saved data. All but 3 Earthquakes occurred within 24 hours of received signal, had an average depth of 10km,and no aftershocks were picked up even if the magnitude was greater than the initial event.
I would appreciate any imput anyone may have as I've tried to research a VLF-Earthquake correlation online and not been able to establish weather this is a common occurrance or worthy of further investigation. I live in the North of England and would dearly love to know why China, Chile and Indonesia keep popping up on my screen.
Thanks, Duffy
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Skywise - 01-25-2015
(01-25-2015, 12:12 AM)Duffy Wrote: Hello all,
First of all I'm a newbe, a non-scientist nor an accademic of any kind so forgive me if my dialog is a little basic. I'm a semi-retired landscape contractor by trade but in my spare time I'm an amateur/backyard astronomer with visual and ccd observation as my main interest. A couple of years ago I decided to try radio astronomy and started by constructing a SID detector (Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance)for monitoring solar activity,this worked well for a while registering CME's,proton and electron storms and solar wind instabilities. Then two months into this project my monitor registered a large disturbance which I later linked serendipitously to a mag 8.1 Earthquake near the Solomon Islands (which occurred 17 hours after the SID recording). Since then I have registered 23 quakes in 2013 which at the time did'nt retain the data as I was'nt aware of any significance, and 15 quakes in 2014 with saved data. All but 3 Earthquakes occurred within 24 hours of received signal, had an average depth of 10km,and no aftershocks were picked up even if the magnitude was greater than the initial event.
I would appreciate any imput anyone may have as I've tried to research a VLF-Earthquake correlation online and not been able to establish weather this is a common occurrance or worthy of further investigation. I live in the North of England and would dearly love to know why China, Chile and Indonesia keep popping up on my screen.
Thanks, Duffy
Hello Duffy. Welcome to the group!!!
First off, please don't be put off by some of us if we get a little critical of ideas. We are generally very scientific in nature so tend to look at things with a skeptic's eye, but I think it's safe to say we ARE open minded in spite of the claims of any of our detractors.
Your findings are intriguing, and I might be of some assistance. I myself am an "armchair" astronomer. I have a scope for visual use, but it's been in storage for several years, so all I can do now is read and look at other's astrophotography. I'd be interested in seeing some of your work. But astronomy has been a hobby of mine for at least 30 years.
Also, I have a background in electronics, mainly digital, so know a little bit there. Went to school for it, worked as a repair tech for a few years. Now it's mainly a hobby. Lately I've been dabbling with a microcontroller and some LED applications. I've also had a vague interest in getting my ham license so know a tidbit about radio as well. But I've always been good at EM stuff, probably from my other interest involving lasers and optics.
Anyway, I can understand you not having had saved data at first, until you noticed a correlation. Now that you do save data, how continuous is it? Only when you happen to do observations or is it 24/7/365? Is it easily sharable for myself or others to examine?
And, can you describe your equipment, how you make your observations and record them?
This sounds interesting. I need to go look up SID, though. Haven't heard of that one before. But I'm a quick study.
Brian
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Island Chris - 01-25-2015
Hi Duffy,
This has become a science thread so maybe we finish the thought and then next time this material can be started on "earth Sciences".
I also am interested. I'm pretty sure there are known to be ionospheric disturbances that occur during great quakes. I'm less sure, but think there have been claims by scientists of such disturbances before great quakes. Brian might know better. We really need seismologist John Vidale posting science here, but the last year he posted about all he posted was to argue with someone. Maybe Brian can send an email to retired U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Roger Hunter; I'd like to know how he is doing. He will be interested once you provide some lists of all signals over a certain size, or whatever.
Here is one thing that we are good at here, but is usually led by Roger. That is, looking at the rate of quakes of different magnitudes, vs. predictions, signals (like yours), solar flares, whatever. You might want to think about whether you are aware of some vague concepts, like how many signals you see, vs., how many major and great quakes there are world-wide.
Chris
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Island Chris - 01-25-2015
Oops, coffee has not taken effect yet, the thread is correctly on the Earth Sciences list...so ignore my comment on that above. Chris
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Duffy - 01-25-2015
(01-25-2015, 03:23 AM)Skywise Wrote:(01-25-2015, 12:12 AM)Duffy Wrote: Hello all,
First of all I'm a newbe, a non-scientist nor an accademic of any kind so forgive me if my dialog is a little basic. I'm a semi-retired landscape contractor by trade but in my spare time I'm an amateur/backyard astronomer with visual and ccd observation as my main interest. A couple of years ago I decided to try radio astronomy and started by constructing a SID detector (Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance)for monitoring solar activity,this worked well for a while registering CME's,proton and electron storms and solar wind instabilities. Then two months into this project my monitor registered a large disturbance which I later linked serendipitously to a mag 8.1 Earthquake near the Solomon Islands (which occurred 17 hours after the SID recording). Since then I have registered 23 quakes in 2013 which at the time did'nt retain the data as I was'nt aware of any significance, and 15 quakes in 2014 with saved data. All but 3 Earthquakes occurred within 24 hours of received signal, had an average depth of 10km,and no aftershocks were picked up even if the magnitude was greater than the initial event.
I would appreciate any imput anyone may have as I've tried to research a VLF-Earthquake correlation online and not been able to establish weather this is a common occurrance or worthy of further investigation. I live in the North of England and would dearly love to know why China, Chile and Indonesia keep popping up on my screen.
Thanks, Duffy
Hello Duffy. Welcome to the group!!!
First off, please don't be put off by some of us if we get a little critical of ideas. We are generally very scientific in nature so tend to look at things with a skeptic's eye, but I think it's safe to say we ARE open minded in spite of the claims of any of our detractors.
Your findings are intriguing, and I might be of some assistance. I myself am an "armchair" astronomer. I have a scope for visual use, but it's been in storage for several years, so all I can do now is read and look at other's astrophotography. I'd be interested in seeing some of your work. But astronomy has been a hobby of mine for at least 30 years.
Also, I have a background in electronics, mainly digital, so know a little bit there. Went to school for it, worked as a repair tech for a few years. Now it's mainly a hobby. Lately I've been dabbling with a microcontroller and some LED applications. I've also had a vague interest in getting my ham license so know a tidbit about radio as well. But I've always been good at EM stuff, probably from my other interest involving lasers and optics.
Anyway, I can understand you not having had saved data at first, until you noticed a correlation. Now that you do save data, how continuous is it? Only when you happen to do observations or is it 24/7/365? Is it easily sharable for myself or others to examine?
And, can you describe your equipment, how you make your observations and record them?
This sounds interesting. I need to go look up SID, though. Haven't heard of that one before. But I'm a quick study.
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the welcome, your reply made me feel that at least I would'nt be treated like someone from the twilight zone, not yet anyway, I know I'm way out of my league on this forum but what I lack in brain power I make up for in practicality and initiative, as for criticism my mother-in-law lives with us so I think I can handle a little of that too.
Meaning no disrespect it would'nt be my first choice to share data at this stage as I've tried that once and was disillusioned by the outcome. In May 2013 I sent by recorded delivery data for 5 possible quake signals along with solar info for dates the signals were picked up to the BGS, I received no response or acknowledgment from them, nor were my emails returned, I concluded that my data was irrelevant so retained nothing further for that year.
I decided to join Earthwaves because you have on going prediction projects and thought an opportunity might be here to inform members of possible quake signals in real time and hopefully have them verified within 24-48 hours by checking the USGS website as I do.
I was going to shut this project down as solar activity has started decreasing and by now I should be listening to storms on Jupiter or bouncing signals off the Moon, but modifications to my antenna's has encouraged me to continue for another year at least. A few details are as follows: I run 2 independent monitors on 16v batteries for 11 hours a day,after this time the batteries are depleated, these are connected via feed lines to 2 loop antenna's 1.5m in diameter, VLF signals are received mostly from naval bases around the world and relayed to the monitors, these are reconfigured into a signal strength/decibel level graph displays using spectrum lab software, any unusual drops or peaks in the signals displayed means the upper atmosphere has been temporarily ionised due to solar activity, Hence you have recorded a SID event.
Do you think real time posting is feasible or perhaps needs further consideration, I believe past data would be better understood if future data was verified by more than just myself. Thanks Brian, and the mother-in-law is really a very nice lady.
Duffy
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Skywise - 01-26-2015
(01-25-2015, 11:05 PM)Duffy Wrote: Meaning no disrespect it would'nt be my first choice to share data at this stage as I've tried that once and was disillusioned by the outcome.
I quote understand. Once bitten, twice shy. Been there. Done that. Too many times.
(01-25-2015, 11:05 PM)Duffy Wrote: A few details are as follows: I run 2 independent monitors on 16v batteries for 11 hours a day,after this time the batteries are depleated, these are connected via feed lines to 2 loop antenna's 1.5m in diameter, VLF signals are received mostly from naval bases around the world and relayed to the monitors, these are reconfigured into a signal strength/decibel level graph displays using spectrum lab software, any unusual drops or peaks in the signals displayed means the upper atmosphere has been temporarily ionised due to solar activity, Hence you have recorded a SID event.
Being on battery is a good thing as it isolated the system from possible noise from the mains.
I looked up SID's last night, and upon having "VLF" reittereated, I realized I've dabbled with this a bit myself. I've used Spectrum Lab. Yet another big hobby of mine is music. I play guitar and keyboards and have invested a bit in good audio equipment. I have a professional quality DAC for audio I/O on my computer, capable of 100Khz sampling rates. I have stuck a home brew antenna into the thing and have used it to monitor VLF signals up to 50Khz. Basically, a poor man's SDR (Software Defined Radio).
In fact, here's an old picture of some signals and their ID. It wasn't done in Spectrum Lab, but in Adobe Audition which is what I use for audio processing.
![[Image: VLF-ELF-HF.jpg]](http://www.skywise711.com/misc/VLF-ELF-HF.jpg)
I didn't mess with the VLF stuff for very long. Sort of just a passing curiosity. But it was interesting to see what I could pick up with equipment that wasn't even designed for the job.
(01-25-2015, 11:05 PM)Duffy Wrote: Do you think real time posting is feasible or perhaps needs further consideration, I believe past data would be better understood if future data was verified by more than just myself.
I'm not sure how "real time" one could get, unless you post a notice as soon as you see it. AND YOU ARE VERY WELCOME TO DO SO. But it may not be necessary. The reason I had ask if the data could be shared is I and others (Roger Hunter most likely) could examine the data for correlations to known earthquake events. Roger is better at the statistical analysis stuff than I, but I've helped in writing software and verifying some of his work. I think I'm a little more experienced of a programmer than he his.
However, I'd like to express some concerns or points regarding precursors in general. It's often easy to notice that just before a quake, "X" happened. But how many times has "X" happened and there was no quake? And how many quakes had no "X" at all? This is where the hard work comes in and why statistical analysis is so important. It allows us to see if there is a possible pattern, or if it's just random chance. See, things DO happen by chance some of the time.
But don't let that skepticism discourage you. An idea can't be tested unless one takes the time to look into it. And sometimes it takes a long time - lots of data - to tease out the results. And finding out something isn't true is just as important (sometimes more so) as finding out it is.
Now you've got me wondering if I should set up an antenna again and fire up Spectrum Lab to see what I pick up.
Brian
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Island Chris - 01-26-2015
I would not look at just the data coming in real time. Instead, I suggest you make some kind of graph of it periodically and post it: date and time vs. level of signal, if that is how it works. And, just post as quickly as you can when you see something unusual. Work with Brian or Brian and Roger to figure out what form to post it, and on which of these sublists. It is related to prediction but I think you are not doing predictions.
By the way, I am not some important person who will run and do something with your work. Instead, if over some period of time (years?) it looks like you are on to something, I'd point it out to seismologists I know. I participate with the Southern California Earthquake Center and they have, or had, a center for earthquake predictability. This is for physics-based prediction schemes, not for pseudo-science. So far, sounds like there is some physics behind what you are doing, and this could be interesting (over years) as long as you pay attention to reality (to Brian and Roger, and to a lesser extent, me).
I am a research geologist for University of California, Santa Barbara (living in northeastern USA), and most of my work is either past climates or faults and the associated folds and stratigraphy.
Chris
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Roger Hunter - 01-26-2015
hi Duffy, welcome.
I see I've been mentioned several times so I'd better jump in.
I'm a retired USGS seismologist/programmer. My hobby has been running a program I started at work to evaluate quake predictions of all sorts.
What I'd need from you is a complete list of all the signals you've recorded so that I can compare them to the actual quakes. Ideally I'd want them before the quakes happened so you couldn't be accused of selecting only good ones for testing.
There are some problems with this, in that you aren't specifying date, mag. or location which makes it difficult to say that a given signal matches a particular quake.
Roger
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Skywise - 01-26-2015
(01-26-2015, 12:27 PM)Island Chris Wrote: Work with Brian or Brian and Roger to figure out what form to post it, and on which of these sublists. It is related to prediction but I think you are not doing predictions.
The best place to post that information would be in "Prediction Evaluation", unless I made a new forum specific to VLF research, and that would just be a subforum of the above anyway.
Brian
RE: vlf Quake precursor, Whats the story so far - Roger Hunter - 01-26-2015
(01-26-2015, 10:31 PM)Skywise Wrote:(01-26-2015, 12:27 PM)Island Chris Wrote: Work with Brian or Brian and Roger to figure out what form to post it, and on which of these sublists. It is related to prediction but I think you are not doing predictions.
The best place to post that information would be in "Prediction Evaluation", unless I made a new forum specific to VLF research, and that would just be a subforum of the above anyway.
Brian
Or he could send them directly to me. No need to clutter up the website unless you think others might be interested too.
Roger