[PublicAnimalNo9]

I'm sorry I can't find the article. I forgot to save it to my desktop but, I read an interesting piece where scientists may be onto a method to predict earthquakes using of all things, the atmosphere.

It seems that for three days leading up to the quake that rocked Japan last year, the atmosphere, or more accurately, the ionosphree started to heat up dramatically directly over the epicenter.
IIRC, when the Earth's crust undergoes major stress before a quake, it affects the magnetic field which excites the ions in the ionosphere causing it to heat up.
Why it affects the area immediately above the epicenter I don't know but this would be super cool if they could actually start predicting major earthquakes this way.

[eureka]

Could it be this one about Polar reversal? This paragraph is some way down into the article.

It has also been suggested that this ongoing weakening of the geomagnetic force may be correlated to some of the climate change effects that we are already experiencing, as it has also been hypothesized that drastic changes in the Earth’s magnetic field could cause tectonic plates to shift and move, trigger earthquakes and volcanic activity, and cause massive storms on the surface of the Earth, while the weather patterns are in the process of readjusting.

http://www.science20.com/make_love_not_ ... rsal-76775

[PublicAnimalNo9]

eureka wrote:

Could it be this one about Polar reversal? This paragraph is some way down into the article.

It has also been suggested that this ongoing weakening of the geomagnetic force may be correlated to some of the climate change effects that we are already experiencing, as it has also been hypothesized that drastic changes in the Earth’s magnetic field could cause tectonic plates to shift and move, trigger earthquakes and volcanic activity, and cause massive storms on the surface of the Earth, while the weather patterns are in the process of readjusting.

http://www.science20.com/make_love_not_ ... rsal-76775

Nope, that wasn't the one. It actually suggested the opposite, that earthquakes affect the magnetic field. The article had nothing to do with climate or polar reversal anything else like that. It was simply an article about the possibility of using rapidly excited ions in the ionosphere as a means of detecting where and roughly when a quake will occur.

[Hyack]

Somewhat of the same idea...

Atmospheric changes prior to Japan quake revealed – could we predict quakes afterall?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Yep, that was the article I saw except the version I saw was somewhat abridged

Thanks Hyack