Posted on 11/14/2016 8:41:05 AM PST by BenLurkin
Quick-thinking New Zealanders managed to film the scene in Wellington while the powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck near Christchurch.
Their clips show flashes of green, white and blue in the sky over a span of a few seconds.
Zachary Bell said he filmed a video at ‘the peak of the shaking’, noting that ‘the sky began to light up with colours’ over the sea.
Another video posted on Instagram shows clear, bright flashes of light during the earthquake that killed two people and led to tsunamis.
(Excerpt) Read more at metro.co.uk ...
Over the past few years, various theories have been proposed for how earthquake lights form, including the disruption of the Earth's magnetic field by tectonic stress and the so-called piezoelectric effect, in which quartz-bearing rocks produce voltages when compressed in a certain way.
But Freund and colleagues now report that what causes earthquake lights appears to be an entirely different electrical process.
"When nature stresses certain rocks, electric charges are activated, as if you switched on a battery in the Earth's crust," he says.
The types of rocks that are particularly given to the phenomenon are basalts and gabbros, which have tiny defects in their crystals. When a seismic wave hits, electrical charges in the rocks may be released.
In some areas, basalts and gabbros are present in vertical structures called dikes, which formed as magma cooled along vertical faults and may reach as deep as 60 miles (97 kilometers) underground. These dikes may funnel electrical charges along, the scientists wrote. "The charges can combine and form a kind of plasma-like state, which can travel at very high velocities and burst out at the surface to make electric discharges in the air," Freund added. Those discharges are what make the colorful light shows.
The right conditions for lights exist in less than 0.5 percent of earthquakes worldwide, the scientists estimate, which explains why the phenomena are relatively rare.
Kerry only LOOKS like he escaped from Davey Jones locker.
it was transformers blowing up
OK Does anyone know how to pronounce “Cthulthu”?
Kinda like chewing Wint-O-green Lifesavers in the dark?
And the Holistic Detective Agency.
We solve the WHOLE problem.
Greatest American Hero vs Green Lantern?
Possible electric power flashes from blown transformers or electric wires touching each other?
Spot on
It was the Enterprise relieving pressure in the earth’s core, without violating the Prime Directive.
Everything is connected.
I know the series isn’t true to the books but I love it anyway.
It’s so wonderfully bizarre.
The holistic assassin wasn’t in last week’s episode. She’s growing on me character-wise.
You will have to ask the guy with the tentacles.
It might also be “The Color out of Space”, but my opinions aren’t reliable, as I have gone mad contemplating that which man was not meant to know.
Yep, that’s what I saw.
Don’t know why some people could not see it in Sonoma and Napa Cal.
mechanical motion produces gobs of electricity
never heard of that before - does that make golden pinkish colors too?
One Oct morning 2011 in north Jersey my mom and I saw the whole sky and air outside had this rolling golden pinkish coloring it was after sun rise maybe like 8am, it lasted about 10 minutes from the time we first saw it out the window, rolled from east to west. we took pictures. no one else seemed to see it, never saw any news reports on it either from that day.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
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