Crowdsourced Earthquake Warnings. Cell phones can detect ground motion and warn others before strong shaking arrives. Base map originally created by NASA. Artwork credit: Emiliano Rodriguez Nuesch with Pacifico.
Smartphones and other personal electronic devices could, in regions where they are in widespread use, function as early warning systems for large earthquakes according to newly reported research. This technology could serve regions of the world that cannot afford higher quality, but more expensive, conventional earthquake early warning systems, or could contribute to those systems.
The study, led by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and published April 10 in the inaugural volume of the new AAAS journal Science Advances, found that the sensors in smartphones and similar devices could be used to build earthquake warning systems. Despite being less accurate than scientific-grade equipment, the GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers in a smartphone can detect the permanent ground movement (displacement) caused by fault motion in a large earthquake.
Using crowdsourced observations from participating users’ smartphones, earthquakes could be detected and analyzed, and customized earthquake warnings could be transmitted back to users. “Crowdsourced alerting means that the community will benefit by data generated from the community,” said Sarah Minson, USGS geophysicist and lead author of the study. Minson was a post-doctoral researcher at Caltech while working on this study.
Earthquake early warning systems detect the start of an earthquake and rapidly transmit warnings to people and automated systems before they experience shaking at their location. While much of the world’s population is susceptible to damaging earthquakes, EEW systems are currently operating in only a few regions around the globe, including Japan and Mexico. “Most of the world does not receive earthquake warnings mainly due to the cost of building the necessary scientific monitoring networks,” said USGS geophysicist and project lead Benjamin Brooks.
Researchers tested the feasibility of crowdsourced EEW with a simulation of a hypothetical magnitude 7 earthquake, and with real data from the 2011 magnitude 9 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake. The results show that crowdsourced EEW could be achieved with only a tiny percentage of people in a given area contributing information from their smartphones. For example, if phones from fewer than 5000 people in a large metropolitan area responded, the earthquake could be detected and analyzed fast enough to issue a warning to areas farther away before the onset of strong shaking. “The speed of an electronic warning travels faster than the earthquake shaking does,” explained Craig Glennie, a report author and professor at the University of Houston.
The authors found that the sensors in smartphones and similar devices could be used to issue earthquake warnings for earthquakes of approximately magnitude 7 or larger, but not for smaller, yet potentially damaging earthquakes. Comprehensive EEW requires a dense network of scientific instruments. Scientific-grade EEW, such as the U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert system that is currently being implemented on the west coast of the United States, will be able to help minimize the impact of earthquakes over a wide range of magnitudes. However, in many parts of the world where there are insufficient resources to build and maintain scientific networks, but consumer electronics are increasingly common, crowdsourced EEW has significant potential.
“The U.S. earthquake early warning system is being built on our high-quality scientific earthquake networks, but crowdsourced approaches can augment our system and have real potential to make warnings possible in places that don’t have high-quality networks,” said Douglas Given, USGS coordinator of the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System. The U.S. Agency for International Development has already agreed to fund a pilot project, in collaboration with the Chilean Centro Sismológico Nacional, to test a pilot hybrid earthquake warning system comprising stand-alone smartphone sensors and scientific-grade sensors along the Chilean coast.
“The use of mobile phone fleets as a distributed sensor network — and the statistical insight that many imprecise instruments can contribute to the creation of more precise measurements — has broad applicability including great potential to benefit communities where there isn’t an existing network of scientific instruments,” said Bob Iannucci of Carnegie Mellon University, Silicon Valley.
“Thirty years ago it took months to assemble a crude picture of the deformations from an earthquake. This new technology promises to provide a near-instantaneous picture with much greater resolution,” said Thomas Heaton, a coauthor of the study and professor of Engineering Seismology at Caltech.
Read more: Researchers Test Smartphones for Earthquake Warning
The Latest on: Earthquake Warning System
via Google News
The Latest on: Earthquake Warning System
- ‘If I start speaking, there will be an earthquake’: Maharashtra CM Shinde's subtle warning to Uddhav Thackerayon July 30, 2022 at 7:00 pm
You fight elections in alliance with BJP and then form government with Congress and NCP to become chief minister. Isn't this a betrayal? CM Shinde questions ...
- Could Underwater Cables Help Our Tsunami Response Times?on July 30, 2022 at 4:18 pm
Having advance knowledge of natural disasters can save lives. Someone given instructions to find shelter during an earthquake is better off than someone with no advance knowledge of the same event — ...
- ‘There will be earthquake if I started speaking’: Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde’s veiled warning to Uddhav Thackerayon July 30, 2022 at 8:07 am
Uddhav Thackeray, who resigned as Maharashtra chief minister in June after Eknath Shinde rebelled against him along with majority of Shiv Sena MLAs, have often dubbed the rebels as ...
- The Fault in the Facts: Can scientists predict earthquakes?on July 28, 2022 at 5:18 pm
Alaska is hit with many earthquakes a day, weather they are felt or not. Alaskans have no warning that a big shake is coming, but in this installment of The Fault in the Facts, a seismologist answers ...
- One Western Visayas: Earthquake Early Warning System, Dako ang Bulig sa mga Residenteon July 28, 2022 at 5:47 am
Earthquake early warning system nga ginpahamtang sa Brgy. Katilingban, Molo, dako ang bulig sa mga residente. See what's fresh from your firsthand source of local news, events, and activities— visit ...
- EXPLAINER: Is it possible to predict earthquakes?on July 27, 2022 at 11:09 pm
An accurate prediction of exactly when and where an earthquake will occur is currently impossible and will still be impossible in the foreseeable future, experts say ...
- Scientists develop two-day warning to predict devastating earthquakeson July 27, 2022 at 4:57 am
Israeli scientists say their method can forecast strong earthquakes up to 48 hours ahead with 80% accuracy.The post Scientists develop two-day warning to predict devastating earthquakes appeared first ...
- Seismocon To Launch First Earthquake Warning Systemon July 27, 2022 at 4:41 am
Seismocon is placed on a wall inside your home. It is your digital lifejacket when a natural disaster happens. Multiple advanced sensors ...
- Undersea Internet Cables Can Detect Earthquakes—and May Soon Warn of Tsunamison July 26, 2022 at 3:00 am
Marra had stumbled onto a new way to detect earthquakes. Scientists have deployed many seismometers on land but relatively few on the seafloor, where the cost of installation is often prohibitive. Yet ...
- Earthquake detection using submarine cableson July 26, 2022 at 2:24 am
Highly sensistive to vibration, smart submarine communications cables could present an opportunity to create a global early warning system for earthquakes ...
via Bing News
One Comment
kate
Since I’ve known there is also an earthquake early warning project for smartphones in experimental level. but recently they announced they planned to release their app in 2016.
I don’t know if it is required any additional equipment.