News item: How animals predict earthquakes
Posted by Skywise on December 01, 2011 at 11:01:57:

Found this story on the BBC:

News item: How animals predict earthquakes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014

Excerpt

Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike.

This, scientists say, could be the cause of bizarre earthquake-associated animal behaviour.

Researchers began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of toads abandon its pond in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009 - days before a quake.

They suggest that animal behaviour could be incorporated into earthquake forecasting.

The team's findings are published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. In this paper, they describe a mechanism whereby stressed rocks in the Earth's crust release charged particles that react with the groundwater.

Rest of story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014


And here's the mentioned research paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138006/pdf/ijerph-08-01936.pdf

Brian