Double resonance before earthquakes

Abstract

An instrumental array was established in southwest China for Monitoring Vibrations and Perturbations in the Lithosphere, Atmosphere and Ionosphere (MVP-LAI).  We retrieved multiple-geophysical data from the array to investigate common characteristics in LAI before earthquakes.  Broadband seismometers are utilized to monitor ground vibrations in the lithosphere.  Barometers record changes in air pressure near the Earth’s surface.  Magnetometers monitor variations in the ionospheric currents ~100 km above the Earth’s surface.  Instead of GPSTEC (Global Positioning System Total Electron Content), electromagnetic signals transmitted from the BDS (BeiDou navigation system) geostationary satellites are received by ground-based GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receivers to compute TEC data.  The BDSTEC from the geostationary satellites continuously monitor changes in TECs ~350 km in altitude right over the array.  We transferred these data into the frequency domain and found that ground vibrations, air pressure, the magnetic field, and BDSTEC data share the frequency ~5×10-3 Hz before major earthquakes.  Ground vibrations exhibit frequency characteristics of ~5×10-3 Hz due to resonance of nature frequencies before failure of materials (i.e., dislocations of faults, and earthquakes).  Ground vibrations with frequency of ~5×10-3 Hz persistently hit the bottom of the atmosphere that can trigger atmospheric resonance before earthquakes.  Double resonance (i.e., crustal and atmospheric resonance) provides the new way to reveal the seismo-anomalies of multiple geophysical parameters in LAI.  Double resonance would shed a light in earthquake prediction in practice once we face the major issue for efficiently retrieving resonance signals from multiple observation data.