Earthquake Lights...

[Rockhopper]

youtube Dot com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f14pQakxXjc

Earthquake lights over Lima Peru!

They’ve been mistaken for UFOs or dismissed as hallucinations. Now geologists have collected a near-definitive list of a rare but fascinating phenomenon — earthquake lights.

A study out Thursday in the journal Seismological Research Letters shows such quakes are tied to a specific type of temblor in areas where certain geological formations occur.

While rare, researchers were able to document 65 examples between 1600 and the present.

“When a powerful seismic wave runs through the ground and hits a layer of such rocks, it compresses the rocks with great pressure and speed, creating conditions under which large amounts of positive and negative electrical charges are generated,” he said. These charges can then travel together, allowing them to reach what’s called a plasma state, which can burst out and shoot up into the air.

From here: usatoday Dot com/story/news/nation/2014/01/02/earthquake-lights-rare-phenomenon/4255097/

Tim.

[Mordae]

Came across an interesting theory about earthquake lights on a documentry about the Japanese Tsunami.

What they found was that electron production in the upper atmosphere was up the night before the quake (normally electrons are produced by sunlight reacting with the upper atmosphere, production drops at night). The scientists theorize that as the continental shelf was stretched, large amounts of gases such as radon were released into the atmosphere, causing the lights.

[Rockhopper]

Fascinating concept Mord. Could well be true too.

Tim.

[Rogue]

Yeah very interesting. Radon eh...

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