Animals know when earthquakes are coming, weeks in advance

[cronus]

http://marketbusinessnews.com/animals-k ... ance/54410

Animals know when earthquakes are coming, weeks in advance

Animals know when an earthquake is coming several weeks before it strikes, researchers reported this week. Three weeks before a major tremor, animals start moving around much less, a study using motion-activated cameras found.

In this latest study, which has been reported in the journal Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, the authors, from Brazil, the US and UK, suggest using motion-activated cameras to monitor animal movements in earthquake-prone areas as an early-warning system.

The authors explained that reports of changes in animal behavior prior to earthquakes have so far been anecdotal and greeted with suspicion by the scientific community.

The US Geological Survey says stories of animals behaving strangely before earthquakes date back to 373 BC in Greece, where documents cited rats, centipedes, snakes and weasels leaving their homes and heading for safety.

According to Scientific American, Chinese authorities considered 58 species of animals as useful for earthquake advanced-warning companions, especially bats, rodents and snakes. Books were distributed to populations in seismic areas with depictions and descriptions of unusual animal behaviours.

Rachel Grant, a lecturer in Animal and Environmental Biology at Anglia Ruskin University, England, and colleagues tracked the movements of wild animals at the Yanachaga-Chemillén National Park in Peru.

They used motion-triggered cameras over the 30-day period just before the 2011 Contamana earthquake, a major tremor which registered as 7.0 in the Richter magnitude scale.

Three weeks before the earthquake struck, the researchers noticed that animal activity declined significantly.

In fact, in five days during the final week the motion cameras picked up no animal activity, which for the type of wildlife in this rainforest region in the Peruvian mountains is unheard of, the authors wrote.

The researchers say this is the only study to scientifically show that animal movements are significantly affected during the three weeks leading up to a major earthquake.

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[pErvinalia]

I'm an animal and I've never noticed an earthquake.

I didn't read the article, but I wonder what the proposed mechanism is for this? What's going on in the earth in the three weeks leading up to a big one? Small tremors of a particular frequency? Do the animals suffer from false positives? Someone read the article and answer my damn questions!!

[mistermack]

This has been claimed in China for years. Mainly using snakes.

But of course, they also claim that tiger-bone gives you the horn. And cures cancer. And improves the liver. And tells the future.

[cronus]

This has been claimed in China for years. Mainly using snakes.

But of course, they also claim that tiger-bone gives you the horn. And cures cancer. And improves the liver. And tells the future.

...and Chinese medicine keeps you away from genuine quacks explaining both its healthiness and popularity.