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A new NASA challenge is looking for evidence to support a theory that electromagnetic pulses (EMP) may precede an earthquake, potentially offering a warning to those in the quake's path.
The "Quest for Quakes" two-week algorithm challenge seeks to develop new software codes or algorithms to search through data and identify electromagnetic pulses that may precede an earthquake. Some researchers have speculated such pulses originating from the ground near earthquake epicenters could signal the onset of some quakes.
"Developing a reliable approach that can separate potential earthquake-induced electromagnetic pulses from the myriad of natural and anthropogenic sources has been a significant challenge," said Craig Dobson, program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We look forward to seeing the innovative ideas from this competition and learning more about this controversial phenomenon."
The challenge opened for registration on Tuesday. Competitors will be able to submit entries from Monday, July 27 at 1 p.m. ET through Monday, Aug. 9 at 1 p.m. ET.
Contestants will be provided with electromagnetic signal data collected over three-month periods from multiple sensors in the proximity of past earthquakes. Control data with no earthquakes also will be included. Coders will have two weeks to develop a new approach to extract the signals and identify potential earthquake precursors. The individuals or teams developing winning approaches will share a $25,000 prize.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by purpleland on Tuesday July 28 2015, @05:50PM
While EMP could precede an earthquake, it seems it'll be helpful to also have a local seismometer work in conjunction with it to show if there is indeed a correlation. Expectation: oh look EMP pulse, then a few hours (?) later, a corresponding seismometer spike.
Seismometer/graphs are expensive to buy (thousands of dollars), and are relatively big and bulky. I wonder if there might be enough consumer interest in this to develop home/consumer units for amateur investigators, which also submit data to a cloud of some sort (even better if NASA would administer it). Perhaps a kickstarter effort to build seismometer to begin with (see http://www.infiltec.com/seismo/ [infiltec.com] and some sort of EMP detector next. Might be possible to build each unit for under USD200.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:36PM
While EMP could precede an earthquake, it seems it'll be helpful to also have a local seismometer work in conjunction with it to show if there is indeed a correlation. Expectation: oh look EMP pulse, then a few hours (?) later, a corresponding seismometer spike.
Seismometer/graphs are expensive to buy (thousands of dollars), and are relatively big and bulky.
It seems to me that places like California and Japan, which are already heavily monitored by seismometers, would only need something set up to record EMP pulses. There are small earthquakes virtually every day from California into Nevada, the data just needs to be collected and correlated.
(Score: 1) by purpleland on Tuesday July 28 2015, @07:03PM
Good point. But I wonder if there might still be other useful studies to be made from a network of many seismometers in a region over time. This should allow us to visualize and animate seismic activity in a region. In theory the more meters available, the more accurate the animation sequence. I bet you could even guess the location of the epicenter from looking at the animation. Also, it's cool to see the locations of nearby enthusiasts who setup these meters, and interact with them.