Basically there are two different types of earthquakes, deep and shallow and they occur statistically in response to alignments of nearby celestial bodies mainly known to us as phases of the Moon and also to distances Earth-Sun, Earth-Moon. My hypothesis in both cases is the main source of mechanical energy arise from changes of chemical phases followed by changes of volumes in rather large pockets of thermally and chemically homogeneous materials inside the lithosphere for the deep ones and similarly changes of phases and volumes of water (instant or flash boiling) in deep crevices for the shallow ones triggered in both cases by changes of pressure in those large pockets due to ground tides. It seems important to note here the unavoidable coincidence of using the word phase with two completely different senses while describing two different concurrent phenomena and also co-existence of two different types of of earthquakes produced and triggered by similar phenomena at different depths and with different materials.
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| http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/10h.html |
According to Plate Tectonics theory the plates with known boundaries described slightly differently on many different competing geological maps should be more than the crust, which is 5-70 km thick, and include the solidified part of the mantle together comprising the lithosphere where earthquakes occur.
I hereby submit the so called plates are not made of a contiguous and solid material. They are rather a collection of adjacent thermally and chemically homogenous volumes floating together on the magma and being pushed in the same direction by single horizontal magma convection currents towards areas where two opposed horizontal convection currents meet and move downwards where they [solid material, so-called plates] accumulate and generally raise together upwards, and apart from areas of upward vertically splitting convection currents where are replaced by new solidifying material pushed upwards by upwards splitting convection currents.
In these area where convection currents meet or split there are volumes of thermally non-continuous and inhomogeneous lithosphere with pockets of uniform or homogeneous materials were changes of phase with changes of volumes may occur in the entire volume during heating or cooling due to vertical motion, according to the phase diagrams of those materials, simultaneously or in short period of times that is the duration of earthquakes.
As two large areas of floating lithosphere meet or separate from each other in areas above both upwards and downwards convection currents known from geological observations as faults there are more opportunities for changes in pressure and temperature for the contiguous and homogeneous volumes of magma due to vertical movements and complex 3D rearrangements then in all of other areas of the lithosphere.
However the sudden phase changes in thermally and chemically homogeneous volumes may occur mostly triggered by tipping external factors such as gravitational influences of nearby celestial bodies and atmospheric pressure.
Also the displacements registered by measurements at ground level are very small relative to the enormous size of the plates and could be easily absorbed through plastic deformations by the enormous size of the hypothetical plates.
There are already theories and studies that suggest intraplate plastic deformations may occur.
"The theory of plate tectonics assumes a rigid behavior of tectonic plates and therefore fails to account for observed intraplate deformation. A new theory of intraplate tectonics is developed to calculate the first-order intraplate deformation induced by horizontal displacement of deformable plate boundaries." "The theory indicates that the first-order intraplate deformation is predominantly induced by horizontal forces acting on plate boundaries and by buoyancy forces that arise from lateral density variations between mid-ocean ridges and plate interiors (ridge push). The simplicity of the predictions and their good agreement with observations suggests that intraplate deformation should be investigated in the pole of rotation spherical" A theory of intraplate tectonics. Shimon Wdowinski.
Another argument that does not favor rigid tectonic plate theories is the recorded speed of S-waves in the crust during earthquakes.
There was an earthquake in Nereju, Vrancea, Romania with the following parameters taken from an automated email from USGS:
Magnitude 5.6
Date-Time
23 Sep 2016 23:11:20 UTC
24 Sep 2016 02:11:20 near epicenter
23 Sep 2016 15:11:20 standard time in your timezone
Location 45.723N 26.627E
Depth 88 km
Distances
7 km (4 mi) W of Nereju, Romania
37 km (22 mi) ESE of Covasna, Romania
42 km (26 mi) NE of Nehoiu, Romania
43 km (26 mi) W of Focsani, Romania
149 km (92 mi) NNE of Bucharest, Romania
There are video recordings published on the web from surveillance video cameras in Bucharest that tell the first trembles corresponding to S or shear waves arrived in Bucharest approximately 30 seconds later which corresponds to a speed of 300 km per minute or 5 km/second.
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| http://teenskepchick.org/2014/12/15/the-physics-philes-lesson-123-conduction-convection-radiation-oh-my/ |
Communication of deep underground water and higher aquifers or oceans may occur through networks of shafts or caves or porous rock. Pressure and level changes of water at the surface may influence the pressure in the deep crevices.
Moon, Sun and other planets' gravity influence the level of waters in seas, oceans and lakes known as tides. Changes of levels in the underground aquifers may occur during passages and alignments of nearby celestial bodies such as Moon, Venus, Mercury and Sun in the same way they occur during ocean's' tides. Changes of levels may lead to changes in pressure all the way to the deep crevices.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram |
Water boiling temperature is influenced by pressure. Water can boil in vacuum (no pressure at all) at very low or ambient temperatures, at 100 degrees at sea level and up to several hundred degrees at several km deep in the ocean.
Sudden decrease of pressure in a body of water boiling slowly or at near boiling temperature in all volume can cause sudden accelerated boiling in the whole volume with sudden increases in volume due to vapors and pressure known as flash boiling. If this sudden boiling occurs in a massive crevice as mentioned above the flash boiling which is accompanied by increase in volume may lead to expansion in upper crevices through narrow passages producing massive vibrations known as earthquakes.
Following the alignments or phases of the Moon, monthly perihelion of Moon (closest point to Earth), yearly perihelion of Earth relative to the Sun, and other planets' alignements, tides are being predicted for navigational purposes.
I hereby propose the following earthquake prediction mechanism based on the above described boiling water in deep crevices theory: Most probable an earthquake will occur during planetary alignments likely to cause the lowest tides in a hypothetical or real ocean above known seismic areas combined with a sudden atmospheric pressure decrease.
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| http://www.ucl.ac.uk/EarthSci/people/lidunka/GEOL2014/Geophysics7%20-%20Deep%20Earth/Earth%20Structure.htm |
Changes of phases may propagate suddenly in homogeneous volumes of overheated magmas where favorable temperature and pressure conditions exist as predicted by the phase diagrams of different basaltic magmas and may induce sudden changes in volume that may also lead to earthquakes. These changes of phase may be triggered by rather subtle variations of pressure from any direction including from the surface and induced by the same factors such as gravity of nearby celestial bodies that create terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric tides and/or by changes of atmospheric pressure.
A very comprehensive and inexpensive way to prove a theory is through applying it to older data.
Last summer there was a series of earthquakes in Italy and Romania that really motivated me to look further into this problem. Especially after i read the news about a possible link between earthquakes and moon phases raised by researchers from Japan.
The issue was not new to me. Years ago where i was living in Romania i was looking into a possible link between earthquakes and atmospheric pressure but more from the point of view of Plate Tectonic theory. Then i thought differences in atmospheric pressure applied on large areas of rigid tectonic plates might transmit all the way to the edge or the place meet that is in fault areas and change the "tension" forces in those areas.
Also years ago when i first installed Linux onto one of my computers which BTW i still use i came across on a rather entertaining free piece of software known as Stellarium, a software planetarium that came with the operating system. That app is not really accurate as it uses only cinematic motion equations in calculating orbits that is not taking into account the very complex influence of gravity of different celestial bodies on each other but while getting accustomed with it i tried to recreate the sky over Iasi, Romania, a city where i witnessed the catastrophic earthquake of March 3rd 1977 in Vrancea, Romania. Because then i was impressed with the sky immediately after, the strange little cotton balls covering the whole sky cloud formation and the full Moon above which remained in my memory. Recently and independently from the current news about the link between Moon phases and earthquakes i verified this hypothesis with Stellarium on other earthquakes and Moon phases.
Then this year i started downloading data from USGS and making tables and adding Stellarium screenshots to those and figured there was a very strong correlation between the two. Because i could not reach past databases with synoptic maps with atmospheric pressure i was watching the newly occurring series of earthquakes in Romania and Italy and used a meteo prediction web site to see if there is a link with the atmospheric pressure. It was confirmed earthquakes occur only when there is a decrease in atmospheric pressure correlated with alignments of Moon, Sun and Earth.
More recently i tried and downloaded the whole list for earthquakes greater than 4 in Romania from USGS database. I uploaded it then to a spreadsheet and added columns for Moon age (days since New Moon), phase of Moon, distance and hour of each earthquake in that list. Since linear formulas for moon age were not accurate enough i added manually the Age of Moon in days and fraction of days from sites that claim higher accuracy.
Then based on the data gathered i started to build simple histograms counting earthquakes in relation to Earth-Moon distance, time of the day, day since new moon, etc.
All the data i studied so far especially the list of earthquakes greater than 4 in Romania i attached here though it didn't lead immediately to a very precise prediction algorithm is encouraging me personally enough into believing such correlations exists.
As a work for the final purpose of finding a precise prediction algorithm, factors need to be separated from each other, influence from atmospheric pressure data need to be added and analysed after gathering that data and generally more data needs to be gathered including meteorological data and everything must be processed with more advanced statistical analysis software including AI or machine learning algorithms on performant computers.
As i stated in one of the paragraphs of this project's description i agree that the the best way to study a correlation would be adding historical data from oceanic and terrestrial tides combined with atmospheric pressure to existing earthquake databases as tides are a good measure of the combined gravitational forces acting upon one location of the earth at a certain time and combined with changes in atmospheric pressure possibly triggering earthquake events according to the theory of phase changes or any theory that accepts earthquakes can be triggered even by subtle variation of geological forces such as tensions in tectonic plates though external influences such as nearby celestial bodies' gravity and atmospheric pressure with the separation and isolation of each influencing factors through statistical methods.
There are a couple of problems though related to correlation between tides and earthquakes as oceanic tides are confined of course to oceans and though they are a good measure of combined gravitational forces, other forces interfere like inertia and/or tidal waves in vast oceans. Also tides of course do not occur on continents except in seas nearby seismic areas and they are not always close enough.
From what i know there is no database for terrestrial tides as i think nobody has been interested in though NASA might have some data on those.
In conclusion i think the best way to pursue the correlations with the influence of combined gravitational forces of celestial bodies on triggering earthquakes is by finding from existing knowledge in universities, space agencies and generally astronomy resources and ultimately isolate formulas that would give a way of calculating total gravitational forces and variations of those forces at time and place of earthquakes in current databases. This can be done following existing knowledge and research and adding those to this project.
As for the atmospheric pressure data, the best way would be to download databases from known sources.
