Hi All. This may or may not be an answer to why some people sense earthquakes before they occur. At any rate it does give one something to think about. Take Care…Don in creepy town.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH KIRSCHVINK has recently made an extraordinary discovery that suggests animals, birds and perhaps even humans may have the capacity to sense the changes in the earth's electromagnetic field - something that earthquake scientists believe is a reliable precursor to earthquakes. Most animals have a substance called magnetite in their brains that renders them sensitive to electromagnetic changes in the earth. Kirschvink has now discovered that humans too have magnetite in their heads. Could it be that the earthquake sensitives genuinely feel something prior to a quake?

Biomineralization of ferrimagnetic magnetite is known to occur in a number of organisms including animals [e.g. 1]. Recent investigations have revealed the presence of biogenic magnetite in human brain tissue as well [2,3,4]. The presence of magnetite in the brain has been established using a variety of magnetic and electron microscopic techniques.

The focus of this project - being conducted in co-operation with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zurich), the University Hospital Zurich, and the University of Hawaii - is on comparing and quantifying the amount of biogenic magnetite present in both normal and pathologic brain tissue samples in order to evaluate its possible role in diseases and disorders of the brain such as epilepsy. In order to accomplish this, methods were developed to quantify contamination levels and accurately measure tissue magnetite content [5].

In addition, we are examining tissue samples using scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and energy filter TEM (EFTEM) imaging in order to locate the particles in the tissue and determine their relationships to structures in the brain.

The presence of ferrimagnetic material in human brain tissue also provides plausible theoretical mechanisms for the interaction of environmental magnetic fields with the human central nervous system [6,7]. These relationships are under investigation as well.