Posted on 04/11/2008 8:38:15 AM PDT by blam
Curious cloud formations linked to quakes
11 April 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition.
Lynn Dicks
CAN unusual clouds signal the possibility of an impending earthquake? That's the question being asked following the discovery of distinctive cloud formations above an active fault in Iran before each of two large earthquakes occurred.
Geophysicists Guangmeng Guo and Bin Wang of Nanyang Normal University in Henan, China, noticed a gap in the clouds in satellite images from December 2004 that precisely matched the location of the main fault in southern Iran. It stretched for hundreds of kilometres, was visible for several hours and remained in the same place, although the clouds around it were moving. At the same time, thermal images of the ground showed that the temperature was higher along the fault. Sixty-nine days later, on 22 February 2005, an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 hit the area, killing more than 600 people.
In December 2005, a similar formation again appeared in the clouds for a few hours. Sixty-four days later, an earthquake of magnitude 6 shook the region (International Journal of Remote Sensing, vol 29, p 1921).
Guo and Wang suggest that an eruption of hot gases from inside the fault could have caused water in the clouds to evaporate. Another idea is that ionisation may be involved: Friedemann Freund at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, recently demonstrated that when rocks are squeezed, positively charged ions form in the air above. The trouble is that ions usually help to form clouds, not dissipate them.
The authors say that if recognisable cloud formations precede large quakes, they could be used for prediction, but other seismologists are sceptical. "There is no physical model that explains why something would suddenly occur two months before an earthquake,
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
I do wonder what the Chinese were looking at before they happened to see these clouds, hmmmmm?
Piezoelectric effect. Maybe
What really happened was Karl Rove’s weather machine parted the clouds so Dick Cheney’s earthquake-making sattelite could have a clear shot!
no pics?
H.A.R.P. ?
OK, this is easily explained: GLOBAL WARMING has transmogrified the planet to the extent that the earth is growing wrinkles caused by the depletion of di-hydrogen-oxide which, of course, is caused by the accretion of carbon dioxide within the troposphere thereby depleting the available valence of precipitable non-carbonized oxides of nitrogenized molecules of sulfur dioxide that overweights the overburden of the land conformations in the tectonic zones at issue.
rain?
The Chinese have a long history of earthquake prediction claims that have never panned out - in the closing days of Mao’s rule they claimed to a quake prediction method, then a massive quake killed almost a quarter of a million people there in 1976.
I need pics so I can begin worrying whenever I see that particular formation.
Having been to the site (call ahead, they will let you visit) I found no black helicopters, UFOs or any of that stuff.
Did see some large HF transmitters, kind of like what the VoA runs out of Califlower.
There is a sister site at Poker Flats with even more powerful transmitters, but for some reason, it never gets the PR that the HAARP site gets.
Anyway, they publish their Xmit schedules, so you can tie together the earthquakes/hurricanes/tornadoes/whatever to its use.
Ultra-top-top-secret webcam here - http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/
I dare you to say that WITHOUT taking a second breath..:)
An abstracted FWIW (har har)....
Pre-Seismic Sporadic E Ionization Associated with Terrestrial Gas Emanation
It could be their all-natural diet rich in vegetables and rolled oats...
Oh, I thought it said “Quakers!”... Nevermind!
From the article: "... a gap in the clouds in satellite images from December 2004 that precisely matched the location of the main fault"
So, if you see a persistent, peculiar gap in cloudcover forming for no apparent reason over a period of about a month or so, that precisely follows a known active fault line, you might want to check your insurance and make preparations. That is, if you give credence to this report.
If this proves true, a satellite can be set over the San Andreas fault in Ca. and save thousands of lives when the big one comes in the next few years.
Thermal mountain effect. The clouds are a tell-tale but not the thing to monitor. Ground temp is obviously the key.
Paul Theroux's O-zone /extremely obscure
Ming the Merciless
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