BBC Nature - How animals predict earthquakes Page 1 of 4

NEWS
1 December 2011 Last updated at 01:53

How animals predict earthquakes

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC Nature

Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an

earthquake is about to strike.

This, scientists say, could be the cause of bizarre earthquake-associated animal

behaviour.

Researchers began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of

toads abandon its pond in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009 - days before a quake.

They suggest that animal behaviour could be incorporated into earthquake

forecasting.

The team's findings are published in the International Journal of Environmental

Research and Public Health. In this paper, they describe a mechanism whereby
stressed rocks in the Earth's crust release charged particles that react with the
groundwater.

Animals that live in or near groundwater are highly sensitive to any changes in its
chemistry, so they might sense this days before the rocks finally "slip" and cause a
quake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014?print=true 2011/12/2
BBC Nature - How animals predict earthquakes Page 2 of 4

The team, led by Friedemann Freund from Nasa and Rachel Grant from the UK's
Open University hope their hypothesis will inspire biologists and geologists to work
together, to find out exactly how animals might help us recognise some of the
elusive signs of an imminent earthquake.

Strange behaviour
The L'Aquila toads are not the first example of strange animal behaviour before a
major seismic event. There have been reports throughout history of reptiles,
amphibians and fish behaving in unusual ways just before an earthquake struck.

In 1975, in Haicheng, China, for example, many people spotted snakes emerging
from their burrows a month before the city was hit by a large earthquake.

This was particularly odd, because it occurred during the winter. The snakes were in
the middle of their annual hibernation, and with temperatures well below freezing,
venturing outside was suicide for the cold-blooded reptiles.

But each of these cases - of waking reptiles, fleeing amphibians or deep-sea fish
rising to the surface - has been an individual anecdote. And major earthquakes are
so rare that the events surrounding them are almost impossible to study in detail.

This is where the case of the L'Aquila toads was different.

Toad exodus
Ms Grant, a biologist from the Open University, was monitoring the toad colony as
part of her PhD project.

"It was very dramatic," she recalled. "It went from 96 toads to almost zero over three
days."

"After that, I was contacted by Nasa," she told BBC Nature.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014?print=true 2011/12/2
BBC Nature - How animals predict earthquakes Page 3 of 4

Scientists at the US space agency had been studying the chemical changes that
occur when rocks are under extreme stress. They wondered if these changes were
linked to the mass exodus of the toads.

Their laboratory-based tests have now revealed, not only that these changes could
be connected, but that the Earth's crust could directly affect the chemistry of the
pond that the toads were living and breeding in at the time.

Nasa geophysicist Friedemann Freund showed that, when rocks were under very
high levels of stress - for example by the "gargantuan tectonic forces" just before an
earthquake, they release charged particles.

These charged particles can flow out into the surrounding rocks, explained Dr
Freund. And when they arrive at the Earth's surface they react with the air -
converting air molecules into charged particles known as ions.

"Positive airborne ions are known in the medical community to cause headaches
and nausea in humans and to increase the level of serotonin, a stress hormone, in
the blood of animals," said Dr Freund. They can also react with water, turning it into
hydrogen peroxide.

This chemical chain of events could affect the organic material dissolved in the
pond water - turning harmless organic material into substances that are toxic to
aquatic animals.

It's a complicated mechanism and the scientists stress that it needs to be tested
thoroughly.

But, Dr Grant says this is the first convincing possible mechanism for a "pre-
earthquake cue" that aquatic, semi-aquatic and burrowing animals might be able to
sense and respond to.

"When you think of all of the many things that are happening to these rocks, it would
be weird if the animals weren't affected in some way," she said.

Dr Freund said that the behaviour of animals could be one of a number of

connected events that might forecast an earthquake.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014?print=true 2011/12/2
BBC Nature - How animals predict earthquakes Page 4 of 4

"Once we understand how all of these signals are connected," he told BBC Nature,
"if we see four of five signals all pointing in [the same] direction, we can say, 'ok,
something is about to happen'."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014?print=true 2011/12/2