• Space/Science
  • GeekSpeak
  • Mysteries of
    the Multiverse
  • Science Fiction
  • The Comestible Zone
  • Off-Topic
  • Community
  • Flame
  • CurrentEvents

Recent posts

AI and the superconducting relativistic monkey collider RL July 26, 2025 10:14 pm (Off-Topic)

Trump's namecalling is no match for the Scots BuckGalaxy July 26, 2025 2:15 pm (Flame)

Retirement home Spirit cover -- yeah, we had better music. ER July 26, 2025 7:31 am (Off-Topic)

Maxwell's Silver Hammer ER July 26, 2025 6:58 am (CurrentEvents)

♫ I tell you to enjoy life I wish I could but it's too late ♫ BuckGalaxy July 22, 2025 1:32 pm (Off-Topic)

How Groupthink Protected Biden and Re-elected Trump, or put another way... BuckGalaxy July 19, 2025 2:32 pm (Flame)

Why Trump Can’t Shake Jeffrey Epstein BuckGalaxy July 18, 2025 8:07 pm (CurrentEvents)

Colbert cancelled. ER July 17, 2025 8:20 pm (CurrentEvents)

just passin' thru... ER July 16, 2025 2:08 pm (Space/Science)

Home » Space/Science

Mysterious Light Associated with Earthquakes . . . January 6, 2014 6:46 am DanS

Mysterious Light Associated with Earthquakes Now Linked to Geologic Rift Zones
Steep geologic faults are most likely to host strange luminescence

Alexandra Witze & Nature magazine

A new catalog of earthquake lights—mysterious glows sometimes reported before or during seismic shaking—finds that they happen most often in geological rift environments, where the ground is pulling apart. The work is the latest to tackle the enigmatic lights, which have been described by eyewitnesses for centuries but are yet to be fully explained by scientists.

The study, published in the January/February issue of Seismological Research Letters pulls together several strands of research to propose a mechanism by which earthquake lights form. The authors suggest that, during an earthquake, the stress of rocks grinding against each other generates electric charges, which travel upwards along the nearly vertical geological faults that are common in rift zones. When the charges reach Earth’s surface and interact with the atmosphere, they create a glow.

“Earthquake lights are a real phenomenon—they’re not UFOs,” says lead author Robert Thériault, a geologist at Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec City, Canada. “They can be scientifically explained.”

On the Fringe

  • I think NOVA (PBS) did an episode on this... by Ainz 2014-01-06 20:57:43
    • Could also explain why animals seem to know they are coming. Pooping dogs could be a test. by bowser 2014-01-06 20:31:29
      • What's astonishing is not that dogs have a built-in compass... by ER 2014-01-07 06:12:41

      Search

      The Control Panel

      • Log in
      • Register