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Strong earthquakes associated with high amplitude daily geomagnetic variations

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Abstract

In this work, we attempt to quantify forces that result from the interaction between the induced Sq-variation currents in the Earth’s lithosphere and the regional Earth’s magnetic field, in order to assess its influence on the tectonic stress field and on seismic activity. The study area is the Sinai Peninsula, a seismically active region where both seismic and magnetic data are available. We show that both short-term and long-term magnetic changes correlate with the seismic activity extending to this area in other previous studies. We also analyze a set of large earthquakes and magnetic data from observatories around the world to deduce a relationship between earthquake magnitude and maximum distance up to which precursory variations of the magnetic field are observed.

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Acknowledgments

The Authors deeply thank Professor Mioara Mandea (Professor of geomagnetism at IPGP and Potsdam) for her great efforts to revise the part of this work on magnetic variations. Also, we thank Dr. Gerald Duma (Professor of geophysics at ZAMG) for his efforts to revise the manuscript especially the seismic and magnetic variations.

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  1. Taha Rabeh

    Present address: CGUL, IDL, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NRIAG, Helwan, Cairo, Egypt

    Taha Rabeh

  2. CGUL, IDL, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Miguel Miranda

  3. Geophysical Institute of SAS, Dubravska 9, 845 28, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Milan Hvozdara

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  1. Taha Rabeh
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  2. Miguel Miranda
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  3. Milan Hvozdara
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Correspondence to Taha Rabeh.

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Rabeh, T., Miranda, M. & Hvozdara, M. Strong earthquakes associated with high amplitude daily geomagnetic variations. Nat Hazards 53, 561–574 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9449-1

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