Characteristics of Thermal Infrared Anomalies during the Earthquakes in Wenchuan, Lushan in Ya’an and Jiuzhaigou

Abstract

Satellite thermal infrared observation has advantages over other earthquake observation techniques. With MODIS remote-sensing images from the TERRA satellite, the thermal infrared brightness temperature difference variation rate was used to analyze the observation data prior to three Magnitude-7-and-above earthquakes along the fracture zone of Longmen Mountain, and the result showed that there were thermal infrared brightness temperature anomalies one to two months before these three Magnitude-7-and-above earthquakes, and the earthquakes took place along the boundaries of the area where the anomalies occurred. The observation data show that there have been five times of substantial anomalies in the study area, among which four times were correlated to earthquakes.