8 ms·

Sure, but it’s still an interesting observation. Seems like it would merit further investigation to see if there was a related causal mechanism.

asdfman123 7y ago
It's more than just pseudoscience. There are reports of animals being able to predict earthquakes before they occur, and even records of other kinds of electromagnetic activity before quakes. I worked on a project at Stanford that set up EM sensors around the bay area to possibly detect signals before major earthquakes. I mean, right now it's all purely hypothetical but it's absolutely worth trying to find it if it's there, and compeltely within the realm of worthwhile science.
- maratumba 7y ago
  > There are reports of animals being able to predict earthquakes before they occur, and even records of other kinds of electromagnetic activity before quakes. There have been all kinds of tests with animals but so far, all animal behaviour that looks like predicting earthquakes is only their sensitivity to low amplitude-high speed P (pressure) waves, which humans usually don't feel.
  - ficklepickle 7y ago
    Pigeons are very sensitive to this. Apparently a survival instinct from making their home in cliff faces. It seems to trigger a flight reflex, it makes them take off real fast. I use a high voltage arc generator to scare pigeons off my deck. The sound from the arc seems to trigger the same response. It is certainly much more effective than yelling at them or waving one's arms around.
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    I forgot the exact details of the research as I did it in undergrad, but I guarantee my academic adviser, the PhDs at the USGS, and the people providing the grant thought of that. There's evidence for real prediction, including reports of a ramp up EM energy a day before a quake.
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  > There are reports of animals being able to predict earthquakes before they occur, ... No offense but talk to people who have had "psychic readings" performed and plenty of them will swear to you that psychics are, in fact, 100% real.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
    Even if an individual believed a psychic has some kind of supernatural power, as a society, we large understand the mechanics of how psychics do their thing. With animals, we have no clue why there appears to be a tendency for them to act oddly before an earthquake, and up until recently, we didn't understand how birds could navigate as effectively as they do. It's possible that what we see with animals is just coincidence or an artifact of how we perceive our own memories after traumatic events, but it's also possible that an animal or some set of animals can perceive something associated with certain earthquakes.
    - ikiris 7y ago
      It's also possible there exists a teapot on the other side of the sun. One day our science will be able to tell us but until then we it is still possible.
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    Perhaps you would be better served with some humility about your understanding of science. Science involves searching the natural world for evidence for certain phenomena. Yes, sometimes informal observations warrant formal research. People have researched ESP and debunked it. Currently, we are still researching earthquake prediction. No one is claiming anything supernatural is occurring, of course. There may be real changes in the earth's crust before earthquakes which send out signals we haven't yet found.
- josh2600 7y ago
  Have you been in an earthquake before? I remember sleeping during a quake and then waking up right before the main shock hit. I’m not sure what woke me up, it could’ve been a preliminary shock, but I very vividly remember being jolted awake right before the earthquake wave hit. It’s entirely possible that an electromagnetic wave precedes a shock, but it’s unlikely that there are significant waves hours beforehand if there’s actually a causal relationship to the movement of the plates themselves. It would be far more likely that the EM pulse happens with slightly faster propagation than the kinetic pulse (like milliseconds, not hours).
  - brodie 7y ago
    I’ve experienced a number of them and never felt anything leading up to them. The last decent one I can remember was a few years ago around maybe 2 or 3 AM and made my apartment roll back and forth. The rolling woke me up but my partner slept through it. And I tried not to panic so they could just sleep through it, hoping it would end soon. Also, we didn’t have anything hanging or that could easily fall onto our bed in the bedroom so I think staying in the bed was an okay move. I live in a single family home now even higher up the Twin Peaks area of SF so who knows how this house will handle the next one. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. At least the ground is solid and not considered a liquefaction zone. And my new neighbors seem to have some kind of thing going on where they stock first aid supplies for first responders in disasters which seems nice and thoughtful. Though I just don’t understand why SF won’t use our missile warning system for earthquake warnings. Seems like they could make a special earthquake tone and warn everyone if one happens in another city and is heading our way. Even seconds of warning would be so helpful. Could be the difference in being able to jump under a table or desk vs. getting crushed by falling stuff.
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    There are three types of waves that travel through the earth's crust during an earthquake at different speeds: primary, secondary and surface waves, which arrive in that order. Perhaps one of the first two waves woke you up, and then the surface wave is what "felt" like an earthquake to you. In fact, earthquake warning systems detect P-waves early, send out alarms, and give people a few seconds to stop subways and get outside before the surface waves roll in. It's not the same as earthquake prediction, though.
- omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
  This. My wife was in her backyard with her dad during the Loma Prieta quake, and a few minutes before the quake they saw a momma possum with her babies climb down the side of the house and walk off into the bushes. It could be a coincidence, but reports of animals acting oddly before quakes aren't uncommon, and we've recently found a plausible biological basis for how birds sense magnetic fields, so some animal or animals may be able to detect signs that an earthquake is more likely to occur.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    " they saw a momma possum with her babies climb down the side of the house and walk off into the bushes" I don't understand. What would a possum do instead if there was no earthquake? Stay on the house? Walk out into traffic on a highway?
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > What would a possum do instead if there was no earthquake? Stay on the house? During daytime? Yes, mostly, IIRC, they are nocturnal and come down during the day mostly when in food distress or disturbed. But, of course, if you saw a possum come down (perhaps from hunger, or because a crow dropped a husk on it and disturbes it, or whatever) without a near-following earthquake, you might say “Hmmm, odd”, but it wouldn't be a major notable event. But two uncommon events near in time get linked mentally, even if there is no relationship.
dnautics 7y ago
there's plenty of interesting mechanisms that are very plausible, e.g. piezoelectric pressure buildup.

asdfman123 7y ago

It's more than just pseudoscience. There are reports of animals being able to predict earthquakes before they occur, and even records of other kinds of electromagnetic activity before quakes. I worked on a project at Stanford that set up EM sensors around the bay area to possibly detect signals before major earthquakes. I mean, right now it's all purely hypothetical but it's absolutely worth trying to find it if it's there, and compeltely within the realm of worthwhile science.

maratumba 7y ago
> There are reports of animals being able to predict earthquakes before they occur, and even records of other kinds of electromagnetic activity before quakes. There have been all kinds of tests with animals but so far, all animal behaviour that looks like predicting earthquakes is only their sensitivity to low amplitude-high speed P (pressure) waves, which humans usually don't feel.
- ficklepickle 7y ago
  Pigeons are very sensitive to this. Apparently a survival instinct from making their home in cliff faces. It seems to trigger a flight reflex, it makes them take off real fast. I use a high voltage arc generator to scare pigeons off my deck. The sound from the arc seems to trigger the same response. It is certainly much more effective than yelling at them or waving one's arms around.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  I forgot the exact details of the research as I did it in undergrad, but I guarantee my academic adviser, the PhDs at the USGS, and the people providing the grant thought of that. There's evidence for real prediction, including reports of a ramp up EM energy a day before a quake.
jlgaddis 7y ago
> There are reports of animals being able to predict earthquakes before they occur, ... No offense but talk to people who have had "psychic readings" performed and plenty of them will swear to you that psychics are, in fact, 100% real.
- omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
  Even if an individual believed a psychic has some kind of supernatural power, as a society, we large understand the mechanics of how psychics do their thing. With animals, we have no clue why there appears to be a tendency for them to act oddly before an earthquake, and up until recently, we didn't understand how birds could navigate as effectively as they do. It's possible that what we see with animals is just coincidence or an artifact of how we perceive our own memories after traumatic events, but it's also possible that an animal or some set of animals can perceive something associated with certain earthquakes.
  - ikiris 7y ago
    It's also possible there exists a teapot on the other side of the sun. One day our science will be able to tell us but until then we it is still possible.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  Perhaps you would be better served with some humility about your understanding of science. Science involves searching the natural world for evidence for certain phenomena. Yes, sometimes informal observations warrant formal research. People have researched ESP and debunked it. Currently, we are still researching earthquake prediction. No one is claiming anything supernatural is occurring, of course. There may be real changes in the earth's crust before earthquakes which send out signals we haven't yet found.
josh2600 7y ago
Have you been in an earthquake before? I remember sleeping during a quake and then waking up right before the main shock hit. I’m not sure what woke me up, it could’ve been a preliminary shock, but I very vividly remember being jolted awake right before the earthquake wave hit. It’s entirely possible that an electromagnetic wave precedes a shock, but it’s unlikely that there are significant waves hours beforehand if there’s actually a causal relationship to the movement of the plates themselves. It would be far more likely that the EM pulse happens with slightly faster propagation than the kinetic pulse (like milliseconds, not hours).
- brodie 7y ago
  I’ve experienced a number of them and never felt anything leading up to them. The last decent one I can remember was a few years ago around maybe 2 or 3 AM and made my apartment roll back and forth. The rolling woke me up but my partner slept through it. And I tried not to panic so they could just sleep through it, hoping it would end soon. Also, we didn’t have anything hanging or that could easily fall onto our bed in the bedroom so I think staying in the bed was an okay move. I live in a single family home now even higher up the Twin Peaks area of SF so who knows how this house will handle the next one. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. At least the ground is solid and not considered a liquefaction zone. And my new neighbors seem to have some kind of thing going on where they stock first aid supplies for first responders in disasters which seems nice and thoughtful. Though I just don’t understand why SF won’t use our missile warning system for earthquake warnings. Seems like they could make a special earthquake tone and warn everyone if one happens in another city and is heading our way. Even seconds of warning would be so helpful. Could be the difference in being able to jump under a table or desk vs. getting crushed by falling stuff.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  There are three types of waves that travel through the earth's crust during an earthquake at different speeds: primary, secondary and surface waves, which arrive in that order. Perhaps one of the first two waves woke you up, and then the surface wave is what "felt" like an earthquake to you. In fact, earthquake warning systems detect P-waves early, send out alarms, and give people a few seconds to stop subways and get outside before the surface waves roll in. It's not the same as earthquake prediction, though.
omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
This. My wife was in her backyard with her dad during the Loma Prieta quake, and a few minutes before the quake they saw a momma possum with her babies climb down the side of the house and walk off into the bushes. It could be a coincidence, but reports of animals acting oddly before quakes aren't uncommon, and we've recently found a plausible biological basis for how birds sense magnetic fields, so some animal or animals may be able to detect signs that an earthquake is more likely to occur.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  " they saw a momma possum with her babies climb down the side of the house and walk off into the bushes" I don't understand. What would a possum do instead if there was no earthquake? Stay on the house? Walk out into traffic on a highway?
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > What would a possum do instead if there was no earthquake? Stay on the house? During daytime? Yes, mostly, IIRC, they are nocturnal and come down during the day mostly when in food distress or disturbed. But, of course, if you saw a possum come down (perhaps from hunger, or because a crow dropped a husk on it and disturbes it, or whatever) without a near-following earthquake, you might say “Hmmm, odd”, but it wouldn't be a major notable event. But two uncommon events near in time get linked mentally, even if there is no relationship.

dnautics 7y ago

there's plenty of interesting mechanisms that are very plausible, e.g. piezoelectric pressure buildup.