Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Can We Predict an Earthquake before It Happen?

Human technology today has advanced so far when we compare it with our technology a thousand years ago. But with such advanced technology, we never been able too predict one of the most devastating natural power, an earthquake, yet. Maybe now we already know that earthquake is caused by two reason. The movement of tectonic plates, and the movement of magma in volcanoes. And by that two reason, we can separate an earthquake into a two types, tectonic earthquakes and volcanic earthquakes.

By definiton from Wikipedia, an earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. We know that we live on earth. Earth's land made up by several plates that floating over liquid substance we called magma. That is why, the plates can moving and bump each other, and sometimes magma break out from earth crust (it is volcanic eruption).
We still, yet, cannot predict when the next earthquake will struck. But we can learn something from our environment. Some kind of frogs (Bufo Bufo) in Italy were abandoned their breeding site five days before the earthquake that struck L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009, about 46 miles (74 kilometers) away. And the researcher dont know how the frog do this, is it because of detection of subtle things like gases or something.
Another area of study is the relationship between magnetic and electrical charges in rock material and earthquakes. Some scientists have hypothesized that these electromagnetic fields change in a certain way just before an earthquake. Seismologists are also studying gas seepage and the tilting of the ground as warning signs of earthquakes. In 2009, for example, a technician at Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics claimed that he was able to predict the L'Aquila earthquake by measuring the radon gas seeping from the Earth's crust. However, his findings remain controversial.
Hope we someday can predict the earthquake, since it is one of the most devastating disaster that takes a lot of victim.

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