Comments on: Earthquake lights

Earthquake lights

Pater Aletheias — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:02:52 -0800

Until recently, earthquake lights were folklore. It wasn't until the phenomenon was captured in photographs, taken during the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in Japan between 1965 and 1967, that the seismological community acknowledged their occurrence. The precise mechanism is unknown. A stunning example was captured on video thirty minutes prior to the Sichuan earthquake.

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:09:24 -0800

They're caused by the dense neutrino rays coming from the alien spaceships which are triggering the earthquakes.

By: steef

steef — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:12:43 -0800

Let me be the first to say: "Holy crap."

By: DU

DU — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:12:48 -0800

Wow, that's really spectacular. A religiously-minded populace could easily see this as a host of angels or something. Another explanation involves intense electric fields created piezoelectrically by tectonic movements of rocks containing quartz That was going to be my guess too. Daedalus had a scheme to generate electricity this way, though I think it was from the minute tidal movement of the crust rather than earthquakes per se.

By: Kabanos

Kabanos — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:16:50 -0800

I like the P-hole theory. (insert joke about hitting the Pacific Rim)

By: nowonmai

nowonmai — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:17:04 -0800

Amazing. I'm wondering how one could begin to study these things, beyond the speculation in the linked articles. Hang around earthquake zones with a spectrometer? Now that digital cameras are so ubiquitous, I wonder whether useful data can be extracted from RAW files? The potential benefits of understanding phenomena that manifest before earthquakes are immense. Thanks for the post!

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:17:22 -0800

Neat! Kind of weird thinking that these people are all "look at the neat clouds" and in a few minutes their asses were about to get shaken to pieces.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:20:09 -0800

A religiously-minded populace could easily see this as a host of angels or something. I couldn't get everything the woman who made the video was saying, but she was speculating as to the cause and at one point joked it might be 佛光, the Buddha-light, also used to refer to the Brocken spectre often seen from the top of sacred Mount Emei.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:21:11 -0800

Raise your hand if you were expecting that YouTube video to end with the earthquake. ~Raises hand...looks around room to see who's on-board~

By: sy

sy — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:23:06 -0800

This expanded my world. Thanks.

By: Mach5

Mach5 — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:26:10 -0800

thorzdad: I actually fast forwarded to see, heh. That is really freaky and cool looking. I hope some dudes smarter then me can glean some knowledge from it.

By: Patapsco Mike

Patapsco Mike — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:28:13 -0800

So when you see that, GTFO!

By: BobFrapples

BobFrapples — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:30:49 -0800

The earth is nothing if not considerate. She goes & gives you a nice, free laser show for your entertainment. Before she later reaches up and hands you your ass.

By: chimaera

chimaera — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:31:34 -0800

That youtube video looks nothing like "Earthquake lights" and everything like a prismatic effect of the sun shining on the clouds, possibly enhanced by a screen over the window or the camera's lens. What do you want to bet that the Sun was somewhere around 22 degrees in the sky from those clouds?

By: ewagoner

ewagoner — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:32:18 -0800

Wild. These were taken 450km from the epicenter, and the other video linked in the YouTube description was 550km away. There's a map showing the two locations, the epicenter, and aftershock epicenters also linked in the comments.

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:34:30 -0800

It's interesting how there are so many natural warnings about major planetary events that we don't know how to respond to. Many are dismissed as irrelevant or useless by those who think they know better and then suddenly resurface as viable alerts. Physical science and the cosmos: humbling humanity since we first peeped open our greedy little eyes.

By: Artw

Artw — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:39:58 -0800

Wow.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:42:26 -0800

Interesting, though chimaera brings up an interesting point. Those don't look like any sundogs or polarizing effects to me, though.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:42:48 -0800

Isn't that just cloud iridescence?

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:43:14 -0800

Wow, unsettling.

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:43:46 -0800

Were it not for the USGS link I would have categorized this with ancient alien visitations and the Sasquatch, mainly due to it's occurrence before (as well as after) the earthquake... 30 minutes, or even three weeks!. Perhaps it can lend credibility to the idea of animals predicting earthquakes.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:50:28 -0800

In Peru.

By: rmless

rmless — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:51:38 -0800

This is cool. And for once I found an interesting item in the YouTube comments: weekendboredom (2 days ago) hi my granfather was right! he told me that if you see something in the sky in weird colors or the clouds start to look like hte scales of fish, there is a possiility of an earthquake

By: ewagoner

ewagoner — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:54:17 -0800

This has been a great rat hole. I loved this treatment of the reports of a Volcano in North Carolina erupting during the New Madrid quake. I'd not heard that story before.

By: konolia

konolia — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:54:38 -0800

I have seen sundogs and irridescent clouds before. This was different.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:54:41 -0800

Reading the USGS link description of earthquake lights, at such a distance from the epicentre and given their appearance are the videos not not more likely showing iridescent clouds? The proximity in time to the earthquake perhaps made people make a connection.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:55:47 -0800

Heh, in just after an eyewitness shoots down my theory!

By: Devonian

Devonian — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:58:15 -0800

Looks to me very much like the iridescence you can get when the sun's in just the right position to illuminate high clouds of ice crystals. Abstract of: Cirrus cloud iridescence: a rare case study, Kenneth Sassen, Applied Optics, Vol. 42, Issue 3, pp. 486-491 "On the evening of 25 November 1998, a cirrus cloud revealing the pastel colors of the iridescence phenomenon was photographed and studied by a polarization lidar system at the University of Utah Facility for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (FARS). The diffraction of sunlight falling on relatively minute cloud particles, which display spatial gradients in size, is the cause of iridescence. According to the 14-year study of midlatitude cirrus clouds at FARS, cirrus rarely produce even poor iridescent patches, making this particularly long-lived and vivid occurrence unique. In this unusually high (13.2–14.4-km) and cold (−69.7 ° to −75.5°) tropopause-topped cirrus cloud, iridescence was noted from ~6.0° to ~13.5° from the Sun. On the basis of simple diffraction theory, this indicates the presence of particles of 2.5–5.5-μm effective diameter. The linear depolarization ratios of δ = 0.5 measured by the lidar verify that the cloud particles were nonspherical ice crystals. The demonstration that ice clouds can generate iridescence has led to the conclusion that iridescence is rarely seen in midlatitude cirrus clouds because populations of such small particles do not exist for long in the presence of the relatively high water-vapor supersaturations needed for ice-particle nucleation" Even if this is what's on that video (and it should be possible to work out where the sun is relative to the cloud, given that the location and time are known), the question is how does an earthquake produce that sort of cloud. R

By: edheil

edheil — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:00:42 -0800

They sure look like fire rainbows to me. http://images.google.com/images?q=fire+rainbow I've heard of earthquake lights before, and I am sure willing to believe there are such things, but these look like fire rainbows to me.

By: beagle

beagle — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:02:47 -0800

Understanding the p-hole currents holds the key to deciphering pre-earthquake signals. ("When the earth speaks", a lecture by a NASA scientist on how the p-hole phenomenon may lead to a means of predicting earthquakes. Video and audio versions available.)

By: ewagoner

ewagoner — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:06:31 -0800

Fire rainbows look like that, but are generally high altitude cirrus clouds. I've seen those many times, and they're a treat, no doubt. The clouds in the video were low altitude and not cirrus.

By: beagle

beagle — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:08:06 -0800

And, an article on earthquake prediction co-authored by the same NASA scientist (Friedemann Freund), and a rebuttal.

By: daHIFI

daHIFI — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:10:46 -0800

I never expected to make this same comment twice the same day, but don't forget about earthquake clouds

By: weston

weston — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:14:08 -0800

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection....

By: MrVisible

MrVisible — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:15:30 -0800

So, just out of curiosity, let's say I see something just like that in the sky. Then my animals all freak out. What could I do to prepare for an earthquake in ten minutes, anyway? All I can think of is rigging my video camera in some sort of sling. And, you know, sobbing.

By: echo target

echo target — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:17:43 -0800

Those don't seem to be what most people mean when they talk about 'earthquake lights'. See Fire&Wings' comment above, or these (lower-quality) videos: One (50 seconds in) Two (30 seconds in) Three (10 seconds in) They're flashes of light on the night horizon, and look to be a completely different phenomenon than prismatic clouds.

By: echo target

echo target — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:19:24 -0800

Those links (and a bit more information) from this page

By: kcds

kcds — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:24:55 -0800

FWIW, the Wikipedia entry linked in the FPP contains the following note:

On May 12, 2008, 30 minutes prior to the Sichuan Earthquake, a cell phone captured footage of multi-colored clouds in the sky (see external link below). The footage was uploaded to Youtube[3]. However, what the footage shows is just a circumhorizontal arc, which is caused by refraction of the sun's light through ice particles in a cirrus cloud, and is similar to a rainbow.

(Emphasis mine)

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:29:09 -0800

Iridescent clouds != EQ Lights.

By: ewagoner

ewagoner — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:36:22 -0800

kcds: That text was just edited to say that. Maybe by one of us?

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:39:19 -0800

This is crazy. How have I gone so long without knowing about these?

By: popcassady

popcassady — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:42:26 -0800

Refracted light. ...gases?

By: chimaera

chimaera — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:54:33 -0800

I only looked at the third one in your list, echo target, but the flashes around 10-seconds in on that one I would wager are exploding transformers -- you can see all the lights go out in the neighborhood for a couple seconds after the second, brighter one. And I'm standing by my original comment that these are iridescent clouds. It's totally a prismatic effect and for one reason or another is enhanced in the video.

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:01:43 -0800

ewagoner: Its a conspiracy to cover up the truth and kcds is in on it!

By: sonic meat machine

sonic meat machine — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:14:52 -0800

Why are people so quick to assume that there wouldn't be atmospheric effects immediately prior to an earthquake? It's a bit odd that people associate "complete unwillingness to admit the possibility of any unknown phenomenon at all" with a rational and scientific outlook. Science feeds on curiosity, not small-minded contrarianism.

By: chimaera

chimaera — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:21:16 -0800

I have no problem considering the possibility of previously unknown phenomena, but when I see one bit of fluffy clouds with rainbow patterns being sold as "Earthquake lights" immediately next to another video with bright blue flashes against a night sky being billed as the same, let me just say that that sort of thing kinda pins my skeptic-o-meter, y'know?

By: sonic meat machine

sonic meat machine — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:22:33 -0800

Understandable, but it's a question of terminology. I doubt the flashes are anything other than transformers; but the clouds don't resemble iridescent clouds I've seen.

By: stargell

stargell — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:25:24 -0800

Kind of weird thinking that these people are all "look at the neat clouds" and in a few minutes their asses were about to get shaken to pieces. Reminds me of the Tsunami footage where the beachgoers all marveled at the how the shoreline had receded, and then...

By: caddis

caddis — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:39:47 -0800

Interesting.

By: jessssse

jessssse — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:01:19 -0800

the lights in peru look like exploding transformers.

By: lupus_yonderboy

lupus_yonderboy — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:29:00 -0800

Just FYI on this one: 1. Science does finally admit the existence of earthquake lights and similar effects. 2. The overall mechanism is unclear, but it's almost certainly some variety of the piezoelectric effect, where crystalline structures respond to pressure by generating an electrical voltage. 3. This video doesn't appear to show earthquake lights. 4. There are other reported effects, some of which are quite likely legit (like animal effects) and others which are probably coincidences. 5. The difficulty with the science is of course you can't get the earth to quake on demand. A nice discussion is here.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:18:06 -0800

Yeah, I've seen exploding transformers before. It was very weird. This bright blue light outside my window and loud hissing noise, then all the power was out for blocks. A bunch of people were outside wandering around. Kind of interesting.

By: Gular

Gular — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:19:28 -0800

That's both incredibly creepy and really cool. Thanks for this!

By: bz

bz — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:22:48 -0800

I once watched an excellent documentary about the earthquake light phenomenon in which they squished rock in a very large hydraulic press and filmed the process with a very high speed camera. Sure, enough, a few inches from the surface of the stressed rock there appeared little electric balls and flashes in mid-air. They considered these to be caused piezo-electrically (as lupus_yonderboy mentions, above) and a possible explanation for earthquake lights.

By: quin

quin — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:34:23 -0800

popcassady : Refracted light. ...gases? *flashes neuralyzer* The flash of light you saw in the sky was not an earthquake light. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

By: bwg

bwg — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:47:41 -0800

And just like after she heard the word iridescent everything was iridescent for a while

By: Tube

Tube — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:40:37 -0800

I came very close to posting this myself; I've been collecting some of the same links for several days now... While I'd like very much to believe that we may indeed be seeing "EQ" lights, the RGBIV banding concerned me, and being the skeptic that I am, realized that we might be seeing a coincidental rainbow effect of some sort. I was still in the process of trying to eliminate that possibility from my mind before I posted this. At this point I can add a few links; the Vogel Study, is run by a Seattle man named David Akers, whom I've talked to. I learned about Akers and his study through an older book by Greg Long, now known more for his book claiming the Patterson Bigfoot film is a hoax. I've spent time at the viewing center at Marfa Texas, waiting for the famous "mystery lights" but my wait was in vain. Part of the problem with all this is that you have a number of connected phenomena, some of which go well into the "woo" zone; UFO's, "orbs", ghosts and such. I suspect that this element is enough of a deterrent to dissuade many legitimate geophysicists from investigating. If what we see in the Chinese video is indeed an "earthquake light", it might be similar to an aurora, which is a plasma. Part of my interest in all of this is that I discovered that carbon fiber veil is probably the best material with which to create microwave oven plasma.

By: Kronos_to_Earth

Kronos_to_Earth — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:42:15 -0800

I knew absolutely nothing about this subject. MetaFilter is educational. Thanks, Pater Aletheias!

By: mediareport

mediareport — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:39:24 -0800

Why are people so quick to assume that there wouldn't be atmospheric effects immediately prior to an earthquake? Amen. It makes a helluva lot more sense to postulate that there would be effects in other elements of the environment than to postulate that there wouldn't.

By: Vavuzi

Vavuzi — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:48:37 -0800

OK. I'm officially freaked out.

By: waxboy

waxboy — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:58:17 -0800

After reading the related wikipedia article on "earthquake clouds" I'd say they're a more believable indicator than these strange lights. From what I've seen on the web today, these "earthquake lights" look like they're caused either by light diffraction or exploding transformers. Those cloud formations, on the other hand, look like the result of low frequency pressure waves interacting with the atmosphere. If I see the latter you can be sure I'll be spending lots of time outdoors well away from buildings, just like I'd be heading for high ground if the ocean line suddenly recedes.

By: Tube

Tube — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:16:08 -0800

After looking at the "fire rainbow" photographs, and then the other "10 minutes before" video, it's obvious that these videos show rare rainbows, not "earthquake lights". Note the color bands; red on top, yellow in the middle, green at the bottom. In other news, Bigfoot's "butt print" was actually made by an elk...

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:52:49 -0800

I've seen a lot of clouds and weird lights in the sky from Florida to Quebec... I've seen fire cloud rainbows, regular rainbows from all angles, auroras, sun dogs, moon dogs, false sunrises, and even the "green flash" at sunset - and what was on the tape was none of the above. Gonna need to see footage of similar clouds showing similar behavior in other circumstances before I buy the "sun shining on clouds" explanation. It's weird stuff.

By: Slap*Happy

Slap*Happy — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:55:01 -0800

Actually, looking at the second video, that's completely a rainbow, no question, adn I've seen more than a few like that myself. That means the first one is probably one as well, but still weird.

By: wigglin

wigglin — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:41:03 -0800

According to USGS article in the OP, earthquake lights are mostly white to bluish flashes or glows lasting several seconds. Cleary not what is shown in the posted video. However, the clouds in the video have a very close resemblance to Circumhorizontal Arcs, AKA fire rainbows Seems like it was just a coincidence. Still pretty cool though.

By: joquarky

joquarky — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:36:29 -0800

I've seen transformer/power line arcing during tropical storms and hurricanes in Florida, and the color, way it lights up the sky, pulsing pattern, and total duration are exactly the same. On occasion they also show up in hues ranging from violet to orange, but most of the time it's more blue/indigo like in these videos. Given that the third video has a simultaneous power blackout, I'd have to weigh pretty heavily on the hypothesis that the lights in the three Peru videos is probably transformers or power lines arcing. As to the fire rainbows, I've seen those in Florida as well. They are pretty rare, but I can recall seeing them on at least two occasions in the past 3 years. I have to admit though that if they are equally rare in China, then it's quite a coincidence they appear right before a major earthquake.

By: wigglin

wigglin — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:35:56 -0800

For those interested, the Bad Astronomer has a post up on his blog about the lights.