Seismology Research Centre.

Could an earthquake cause a damaging EMP ?

As the earth seems to be ramping up in rumblings, was the latest Russian earthquake detectable in Australia ?

Short answer, yes. A 7 magnitude quake would be observable in all seismographs around the world. But, what other ways can such quakes be detected ?

Surrounding the Earth is the ionosphere and between it and the surface, an electric current flows, giving rise to a voltage gradient of around 500 volts/meter.

Various phenomena disturb this field and are relatively easily detectable using simple equipment.

My electrometer has the sensitivity to detect quakes, storms, meteor showers and so on. I was possibly the only person to have detected the Newcastle earthquake electrically. Since then I have constructed a seismograph, and it certainly can detect most quakes above magnitude 4, and the recent Russian one was easily visible on the trace.

But can a quake cause an damaging EMP ?

Its certainly sends out an EMP, as that's what disturbs the electric field and is detectable. The mode is via the piezo electric effect, much the same as a piezo gas igniter, you smash the sides of a crystal and it emits a spark, but on a larger scale. In the case of a quake, its the rocks being twisted/moved that creates the pulse that radiates out at t\almost the speed of light.

There is a report of telegraph operators being electrocuted by static electricity after the 1868 Howard quake in California. So the potential is certainly there for damage, and that quake was only 6.8 or so.

Should we be concerned ?

Probably not to much as standard prevention techniques for lightning protection will work. The pulse is a relatively long duration, unlike a nuclear EMP which has a very fast rise time, far quicker than MOV's or other lightning protection devices.

I measured the Newcastle quake at around 1,200 volts/meter. That means that for every meter of exposed cable, 1,200 volts were developed across it. Why didn't it cause damage then ? Probably because it was a slow rise time pulse, and my equipment has a high input impedance. Most modern gear and power systems are quite low impedance and tend to attenuate the pulse radically.

However, its something we should be aware of, even if we cant do much to protect ourselves.

And such pulses wont hurt us as we have a very low impedance due to our water content, attenuating and 'shorting' any EMP to the ground safely. If you are so close to the discharge that you feel it, you are probably a cloud of vaporized atoms by then anyway.






It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.

The latest Russian Quake has set off their largest volcano.

www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-19/volcano-erupts-after-powerful-earthquake-in-russias-far-east/104241068

Its all interrelated, screw up one piece and another piece will bite you in the backside.

When will we learn





We must plan for other peoples failures.

I'm of the opinion this would be a good thing for the human species. Maybe not for me personally but still for the greater good. Peak retard was reached when the internet came along. AI has shown me catasrophic retardation is here to stay unless a major disruptor cuts off medusas heads.

Wouldn’t it be a better plan if the troops didn’t have to keep going 100km into town so often? Much safer and a lot less hassle.

I wouldn't mind having my own seismograph, but in my area, it would be going off all the time due to all of the mining blasts around. It would still be cool to have one, but googling some last night and the base level commercial units are still well out of my price range.

A seismograph doesn't need to be complicated. Mine is a coil of fine wire about 2 inches in diameter (probably several thousand turns, I didn't count them when I wound it many years ago, just filled the former full and wrapped a bit of tape around it to stop the wire unravelling).

That is supported at the rear on a aluminum bracket on to a piece of 1/2 " plate steel about 1 meter by 750 mm with 4 adjusting screws on the corners for getting it level. The A frame swing arm is a strong magnet from an old loudspeaker, hot melt glued to the A frame which is swung from a couple of hinges on the baseplate. Simple design, but doesn't respond to steady state conditions as there has to be movement to generate a voltage at the coil from the magnet movement. And that voltage is obviously directly proportional to the magnitude of the shake, and with so many turns is quite sensitive. The gear is sensitive enough to detect someone jumping on the concrete floor adjacent. If I were doing it again I would probably use a small led light illuminating a photocell or similar, giving a steady state output. Not sure of any advantages in that arrangement as mine is self centering and oscillates around the axis giving a decent display. I originally used a chart recorder running at 25mm/hr, but when I left AIS (Now BHP), my sources of chart paper dried up, so now I use a small USB multi channel data logger (DATAQ) and software to record to a notebook PC running windows XP. (That's how long I've been running it for !!). Every so often I back up from the hard disk to a flash drive. Each daily file is around 30 megs, so it takes a while to fill the hard disk, but I have had that happen and it all crashes ! The data logger is 4 channel and also has the electrometer connected to it. I have the alarm output connected to a small sonalet noisemaker (or did), giving a squawk when there is a storm approaching. I've since switched that off as we can see storms here as opposed to the coast where a sudden electrical storm could catch you unawares on our other farm tucked under the mountains as it was.

With the advent of cheap computer modules, Raspberry pie, Arduino, etc, a station could be all home made for very little outlay, and give warning of a coming disaster. Data logging software for such devices is easily available on various user groups for free, and easily modifiable. One issue though is that those boards only can cope with a positive going input, and obviously the seismograph swings both positive and negative, and the atmosphere also does the same, so some way of offsetting the analogue input would need to be devised.

Have fun !






The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor