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Can animals predict earthquakes?

2023-02-08 18:43:08Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Can animals predict earthquakes?
Can animals predict earthquakes?

There are many theories and investigations that claim that abnormal animal behavior can help people predict strong earthquakes.

The long-standing myth that animals can predict earthquakes has yet to be scientifically proven. However, it has long captured the imagination of many people, as local accounts and eyewitness reports suggest that animals behave strangely hours or days before an earthquake strikes.

Dating back to ancient Greece, in 373 BC, rats, weasels and snakes were said to migrate from their homes days before a major earthquake hit the entire region.

Similar anecdotes have appeared recently. Some say that even fish and birds show unusual behavior before seismic activity.

These stories have piqued the interest of researchers, who are using the latest technology to keep tabs on various animals that are said to predict earthquakes before they happen.

Scientific research

Martin Wikelski of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Germany has led an important investigation into changing behavior patterns among a group of animals days before an earthquake hit their respective habitats.

Wikelski placed sensors on six cows, five sheep and two dogs in earthquake-prone northern Italy. He observed them for several months before and during a series of earthquakes that hit their habitat.

Wikelski and his team of researchers collected data that revealed a change in the behavior of farm animals 20 hours before an earthquake. The animals showed a remarkably prolonged activity time – they were 50 percent more active within a 45-minute time frame compared to the previous days. With a series of calculations, the researchers correctly predicted an earthquake with a magnitude above 4.0. Using the same method, they predicted seven out of eight strong earthquakes.

American geologist Joseph L. Kirschvink explained this phenomenon in a scientific journal in 2000, saying that many animals can sense the P wave seconds before the S wave hits. P waves can travel through liquids, solids and gases , while S waves only travel through solids. A small number of people can feel the smaller P wave that travels faster from the earthquake source and arrives before the larger S wave.

Kirschvin's study raises a fundamental question: Is it possible for animals to develop a genetic tendency to anticipate earthquakes and maintain this anticipatory behavior despite varying degrees of seismic activity? The natural instinct of all animals is either to protect themselves from predators, or to escape from imminent dangers that they cannot prevent.

The existing genetic makeup allows a wide range of vertebrates to show "early warning" behaviors for other types of events, and it is possible that some animals mimic that behavior and transform it into a seismic escape response.

contradictions

Despite all this, the scientific community still does not have a consensus on animals that predict earthquakes.

Whit Gibbons, professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, tells The Gadsden Times that survivors should appreciate that they can thank scientists for monitoring seismic waves in the Earth's crust, "not the behavior strange animal".

A review of 180 publications reporting 700 recordings of abnormal or unusual animal behavior before 160 earthquakes shows a significant correlation between these behaviors.

Although seismologists and scientists have not yet found a coherent model in the use of animal behavior as one of the tools to predict large earthquakes, more research on this phenomenon may lead to the desired results.


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