Ionospheric electron enhancement preceding the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake

A new paper by K. Heki in GRL seems to confirm what could become a tool for large earthquake prediction:

Ionospheric electron enhancement preceding the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake

I reproduce the abstract of the paper:

The 2011 March 11 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake (Mw 9.0) caused vast damages to the country. Large events beneath dense observation networks could bring breakthroughs to seismology and geodynamics, and here I report one such finding. The Japanese dense network of Global Positioning System (GPS) detected clear precursory positive anomaly of ionospheric total electron content (TEC) around the focal region. It started ∼40 minutes before the earthquake and reached nearly ten percent of the background TEC. It lasted until atmospheric waves arrived at the ionosphere. Similar preseismic TEC anomalies, with amplitudes dependent on magnitudes, were seen in the 2010 Chile earthquake (Mw 8 .8), and possibly in the 2004 Sumatra‐Andaman (Mw 9.2) and the 1994 Hokkaido‐Toho‐Oki (Mw 8.3) earthquakes, but not in smaller earthquakes.

Reference: Heki, K. (2011), Ionospheric electron enhancement preceding the 2011 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L17312, doi:10.1029/2011GL047908.

PD: Check this paper questioning the results by Heki.

Video of ground motion during Tohoku's earthquake in Japan

Impressive video of the ground motions during Japan's earthquake. Horizontal motion in blue (left panel) and vertical component in red (right). The movie shows the displacements due to the M9.0 and M7.9 earthquakes in Japan on March 11, 2011 (data, no model!). Each dot/arrow represents a continuous high precision GPS station of which more than 1200 are distributed throughout Japan. According to the author (Grapenthin, Alaska Univ.), this is an absolutely unique instrumentation density found nowhere else on the world.

You can distinguish body and surface waves, dynamic slip, and static displacements. Further details and higher resolution video for download at:http://gps.alaska.edu/ronni/sendai2011.html

Also have a look at this other post where you have a video of the release of stress through time.

Visualization: R. Grapenthin, Geophysical Institute, Univ. Alaska Fairbanks.
Data: preliminary GPS positioning solutions provided by ARIA/HPL/Caltech (ftp://sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/usrs/ARIA). All original GEONET RINEX data were provided to Caltech by the Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) of Japan.

Original scientific paper:

Grapenthin, Ronni; Freymueller, Jeffrey T.
The dynamics of a seismic wave field: Animation and analysis of kinematic GPS data recorded during the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake, Japan.
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 38, No. 18, L18308
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL048405
22 September 2011

Recent documentary on Japan's tsunami (NHK channel)

While focused on personal stories of survival during the tsunami, this video also shows a very comprehensive explanation of the natural causes of the earthquake and the timing of tsunami wave propagation. In Japanese with English subtitles:

There are no mentions to the warnings that came as early as 2001 on evidence for high waves in the region of Tōhoku. I already posted this before, according to Minoura and others studying sediments along the coast in 2001 (Journal of Natural Disaster Science, 23, 83-88):
"The recurrence interval for a large-scale tsunami is 800 to 1100years. More than 1100 years have passed since the Jogan tsunami and, given the reccurrence interval, the possibility of a large tsunami striking the Sendai plain is high. Our numerical findings indicate that a tsunami similar to the Jogan one would inundate the present coastal plain for about 2.5 to 3 km inland.".
Also no mentions to the construction of the Fukushima Nuclear plant right at the coast and ignoring those warnings.

Foretellers sued in L'Aquila?

Inevitable, putting these two news together:

• Italian quake experts accused of manslaughter

• Fukushima tsunami warned by scientists back in 2001

Suing a geophysicist for failing to predict an earthquake is like throwing the augur to the lions for failing to predict a drought. No wait, it's worse, because the augur probably blamed he could do so. Ours is a funny age, when some are prosecuted for failing to predict the unpredictable, while others stay in power even if ignoring solid warnings (i'm thinking about those who failed at predicting the greatest global economic crisis. I guess we scientists need better PRs, or better relationships with power!).

Update (2012-01-28): the conversation of the responsible of civil protection, Bertolaso: "we'll use the experts as a mediatic operation" (in italian). Unmissable, i'm afraid this is what politicians really think about science.

Update (2012-10-22): WOW, here is the sentence: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626#TWEET296232

70th Anniversary of Wegener's death

Alfred Wegener, el principal impulsor de la teoría de la deriva continental y la tectónica de placas (la base de la geología actual), murió en el ártico en 1931 y allí permanecen sus restos, desaparecidos en algún lugar bajo el hielo.

'We stand against [the earth] like the judge stands against a defendant who refused to give any information, and we have the task to reveal the truth by circumstantial evidence.' From 'Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane' (Alfred L. Wegener, 1929).

12, May 1931 the body of Alfred Wegener is found on the ice of Greenland, the remaining members of the expedition led by Kurt Wegener, Alfred´s brother, use a drill pipe to mark the grave with a cross. They respected Wegener´s love to the Arctic and buried him in the ice he had studied for many years and on various expeditions (photography by the Alfred Wegener Institute).
[Extraído de History of Geology]

Japan earthquake appears to increase quake risk elsewhere in the country: study

Japan earthquake appears to increase quake risk elsewhere in the country: study: "Japan's recent magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which triggered a devastating tsunami, relieved stress along part of the quake fault but also has contributed to the build up of stress in other areas, putting some of the country at risk for up to years of sizeable aftershocks and perhaps new main shocks, scientists say."

[from http://www.physorg.com]