Research on the Characteristics of Anomalies in ELF Electromagnetic Observations in Yunnan Province

Located in an earthquake-prone region,the geological structures in Yunnan Province are complex. Taking into account that Tonghai county is located in the intersection of Xiaojiang fault and Honghe fault, an ACF-4M ELF electromagnetic instrument was installed at the Tonghai seismic station,which has produced continuous reliable data. The author collected the data and information for the year 2009 and 2010,and performed analysis on the variation characteristics of both geomagnetic fields and electrical resistivity. The result shows that the 1Hz and 39Hz electromagnetic power spectra are 0. 2 to 1. 4 orders of magnitude higher than the normal values immediately before many earthquakes. The anomalies are represented by the abrupt changes of the electric and magnetic field power spectra in earthquake and aftershock sequences,and the amplitude of change is related to the size of earthquake magnitude and epicentral distance. The electrical resistivity also obviously changes. Therefore, further research on the anomalous characteristics of ELF electromagnetic data will be meaningful to the future use of this instrument in earthquake prediction.

Electromagnetic anomaly before earthquakes measured by electromagnetic experiments

Three experiments are carried out for earthquake monitoring using electromagnetic （EM） methods in recent years. Some earthquakes occurred in chance of the measurement time period for each experiment and the anomalies were recorded before the shocks. The observation at a site 20 km away from the epicenter of Zhangbei Ms6.2 earthquake in 1998 shows that the apparent resistivity decreases in the strike direction before and/or during the earthquake and the resistivity increases in the decline direction. This anomalous variation in apparent resistivity accounts for about 20%. The apparent resistivities at a site in the epicentral area decrease in the strike and decline directions before and/or during the earthquake and increase after shocks. The experiments using artificial electromagnetic signals with super low frequency carried out in 1999 show that the resolution and stability of electric and magnetic spectra are improved. The spectra of electric and magnetic fields and apparent resistivity at the Baodi station began to anomalously change two days before the Qian＇an earthquake with 120 km distant to the station. The anomalous variation of electric and magnetic spectra is about twice as great as normal variation and the apparent resistivity changes by about 20%. The measurements in active seismic area of Yunnan province in the year 2005 indicate that the electric and magnetic spectra anomalously change by one order before the Taoyuan earthquake about 100 km away from the observatories. But the measurements at the sites in Beijing area 2 000 km away from the epicenter do not show any anomaly.

Characteristic Analysis of Anomalies of Strong Earthquakes along the Tancheng-Lujiang Fault Zone and Both Its Sides

This article made a systematic statistical analysis on the duration,spatial distribution,form,range,type and reliability of precursory anomalies based on the observations of precursors of 24 moderate-strong earthquakes occurring along the Tancheng-Lujiang fault zone and its bilateral areas in Shandong,Liaoning,Hebei,Jiangsu and Jiangxi Provinces in the period from 1966 to 2005. Results show that:( 1) For M7. 0 and M6. 0earthquakes,med-term abnormities are the greatest in number,short-term abnormities come second,and imminent anomalies are the least. For M5. 0 earthquakes,short-term abnormities are often the most in number,imminent anomalies come second,and the med-term ones are the least.( 2) Precursory anomalies are periodical,part of the med and short-term anomalies are shown as short-term and imminent anomalies during their development.( 3) The development of precursor shows quasi-synchronism; the closer to earthquake occurrence time,the more turning changes of anomalies will appear.( 4)Anomalies mainly occur within an epicenter distance of 100 km, showing a relative concentrated distribution in space,and the shorter the distance to epicenter,the higher the anomaly station / item rate.( 5) The spatial distribution of anomalies is relatively correlated to the strike of structures,having a good consistency with the structure.( 6)There is no significant correlation between duration of abnormities and the epicenter distance.( 7) The higher the magnitude of the earthquake,the greater the amplitude of the abnormities measured with the same observation approach.( 8) In terms of the itemsof the observations,fluid abnormities are the greatest in number,followed by deformation and electromagnetism observations.( 9) For all observation items,med and short-term abnormities make up the majority and short-term and imminent anomalies the minority.( 10) In fluid,deformation and electromagnetism observations,fairly reliable anomalies are about double the number of reliable anomalies.

Detecting seismic electromagnetic ELF anomalies associated with the 2010 Yushu earthquake in China by DEMETER observations and ELF Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere coupling propagating model

Over the last century,abnormal electromagnetic(EM)emissions associated with earthquake(EQ)activities have been widely reported and recorded by ground-based and satellite observations.However,the frequency at which abnormal EM emissions have been detected varies.In addition,whether low Earth orbit(LEO)satellites can detect EM anomalies from EQs remains controversial.In this paper,we take the Yushu earthquake as an example to address these concerns by DEMETER satellite observations and a newly constructed lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere model of extremely low frequency(ELF)wave propagation.The results illustrate that the frequency of ELF EM anomalies of the Yushu earthquake is mainly at 200–400 Hz.The observations and simulations illustrate that the power-frequency curve of the ELF EM wave from an underground source has a peak power frequency at 200–400 Hz,which is significantly different from the ELF EM wave radiated from the ground source.