Enter the content which will be displayed in sticky bar
Friedmann T. Freund
local time: 2024-03-29 00:51 (-05:00 DST)
Friedmann T. Freund (Abstracts)
Titles Abstracts Details
  • Rocks That Crackle and Sparkle and Glow: Strange Pre-Earthquake Phenomena (2003) [Updated 1 decade ago]
    by Friedmann T. Freund   read the paper:

    Seismic waves are the most dramatic and most intensely studied
    manifestations of earthquakes. However, we also know of non-seismic
    phenomena, which precede large earthquakes. Some of them have been
    reported for centuries, even millennia. The list is long and diverse: bulging of
    the Earth's surface, changing well water levels, ground-hugging fog, low
    frequency electromagnetic emission, earthquake lights from ridges and
    mountain tops, magnetic field anomalies up to 0.5% of the Earth's dipole
    field, temperature anomalies by several degrees over wide areas as seen in
    satellite images, changes in the plasma density of the ionosphere, and strange
    animal behavior. Because it seems nearly impossible to imagine that such
    diverse phenomena could have a common physical cause, there is great
    confusion and even greater controversy. This explains why reports on nonseismic
    pre-earthquake phenomena are regarded with suspicion in the scientific
    community. This may change with the recent discovery that igneous and
    metamorphic rocks, which make up a major portion of the Earth's crust, contain
    electric charge carriers, which have been overlooked in the past. These charge
    carriers are defect electrons in the valence band, i.e., positive holes. Under
    normal conditions they are dormant, but when they ??wake up'', the rocks begin
    to sparkle and glow. This paper describes the physical and chemical nature of
    these positive holes, how they are introduced into minerals and rocks, and how
    they become activated. Evidence will be presented that, once the positive holes
    are generated, currents propagate through the rocks leading to electromagnetic
    emission, to positive surface potentials, to corona discharges, to positive ion
    emission, and to mid-infrared radiation. These phenomena are expressions of
    the same fundamental process: the ??awakening'' of dormant positive hole
    charge carriers that turn rocks momentarily into p-type semiconductors.