Water Chemicals Changed Due to Earthquakes

Team of Researchers Has Found Evidence of Chemical Changes to Underground Well Water Prior to Two Different Earthquakes that Occurred in 2012 and 2013 in Iceland

In their paper published in the journalNature Geoscience, the researchers acknowledge that their findings do not suggest that they have found a reliable earthquake precursor, but they do believe they may be on to something. S.E. Ingebritsen with the U.S. Geological Survey and M. Manga with the University of California, describe the research in a News & Views piece in the same journal issue and suggest that more such research be done.

People have wished there were a way to predict earthquakes for thousands of years—as population centers have grown in size, the urgency has only grown as earthquakes cause massive damage and kill with astonishing regularity. Unfortunately, earthquakes remain the lone natural disaster where no warning can be given for those in a soon-to-be impacted area. That could change, however, if the findings by the team in Iceland prove reproducible.

Scientists have suspected that groundwaterexperiences changes prior to an earthquake—bottled water from a local well was tested before and after the Kobe quake in 1995, and researchers found differences, and similar results were found with well water before and after a quake in China in 1976—but both tests suffered from a lack of data, and because both were single incidents it was difficult to state with confidence if the water change and earthquakes were truly related. In this latest effort, the researchers took a much more systematic approach—they tested groundwater samples every week for the five year period 2008-2013 from an artesian well in the town of Húsavík, a place with a history of earthquakes.

They found that levels of hydrogen and sodium in the water increased six months prior to a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in 2012 and again just prior to another 5.5 magnitude earthquake in 2013. Because of the length of the study, the researchers could rule out background variation, and because it happened twice, it offers more confidence that the changes to the water were not just connected to the earthquakes, but were likely caused by changes in the ground that led to the quakes.

Source: Phys.org

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