Many friends have heard that there will be earthquake light when an earthquake occurs, but they have not seen it, let's first take a look at the following picture:
This is the scene that occurred at 1:45 a.m. on January 8, 2022 when a 6.9-magnitude earthquake occurred in Menyuan County, Haibei Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China, and the strong light appeared for a moment as bright as day, and the epicenter of the earthquake was located 18 kilometers northeast of Huangcheng Township in Menyuan County (37.77 degrees north latitude, 101.26 degrees east longitude), the depth of the source was 10 kilometers, and after the earthquake caused many aftershocks, the largest was M5.1.
Qinghai Menyuan 6.9 magnitude earthquake level can not be considered small, the local official dispatched seismic expedition team in the western section of the Lenglongling fault to carry out earthquake site investigation, found a length of about 22 kilometers of surface fracture zone, the surface and ice surface have appeared continuous cracks, squeezing, bulging and other forms of surface rupture, some surface cracks up to 0.5 meters wide, drum bags are as high as 1.5 meters, from the ground crack situation, the expedition team experts preliminarily determined that the earthquake structure of the earthquake is caused by strong geological activities of the Lenglongling fault.
So is the strong light that appeared during the Qinghai Menyuan earthquake in the above dynamic picture an earthquake? Strictly speaking, it's not entirely certain! Because it is not possible to verify what is happening at the luminous site? But from the performance of the luminescence, it can be judged that it is obviously a discharge phenomenon, which is flashing in a very short period of time, and the situation of lightning in thunderstorm weather is very similar, seeing that there are media reports in which earthquake expert Chen Huizhong said that it may be the light that appears when the explosives explode, which does not dare to agree, because the light at the time of the explosion is also relatively short, but the change in the intensity of the luminosity is not as fast as lightning, especially when the light weakens, it is slower than the lightning, and there will be no flashing state. In the video, when the strong light flickers, there is no explosion of air mass rise, so it is obvious that a strong discharge phenomenon can only appear in the light, and now it is winter, there is no local thunderstorm weather, it is impossible to appear atmospheric lightning phenomenon, and other light emitted by other such as wire short circuits will not be so strong, so the probability is that the earthquake light is judged.
Although there are not many people who have witnessed the earthquake light, but the earthquake light is not unexpected, the earthquake light usually appears when the strong earthquake appears, there are records that there was also a geo-light phenomenon when the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, there is a novel about the Tangshan earthquake called "After the Blue Light Flashes", which was later adapted into a movie, which said that there was a blue light flash when the Tangshan earthquake occurred, but there were also witnesses who said that they saw red light when the Tangshan earthquake occurred.
Not only the Tangshan earthquake, historical records record that some earthquakes in ancient times also often appeared strong light, such as the 1652 Anhui Huoshan County earthquake, shi zai earthquake when the "red light full of ground"; and the 1668 Tancheng earthquake (the largest earthquake in the eastern region of China) also appeared ground light, 1804 Hunan Yuanling earthquake, some people found that "red light is like a horse, from west to east, not on the ground", and the Mexican earthquake in September 2017 also had blue light appeared, is a blue-green intertwined light on the horizon.
The image above and below shows the seismic light from the Great Mexico Earthquake in September 2017
Earthquake light is similar to lightning, and it is also a discharge phenomenon in nature, but as for how it appears, it is still difficult to understand, and scientists have summarized the mystery of the emergence of earthquake light as follows:
1, due to the instantaneous intensification of stratigraphic material activity during the earthquake, the rock layer occurs violently in the period before the earthquake, friction and fragmentation, and the energy generated makes the peroxygenic bonds in rocks such as dolomite, rhyolite and other rocks destroyed, and the negative oxygen ions generated contact the atmosphere will also ionize the gas, then it will be suddenly released in the form of lightning, and the seismic light will appear.
2, there is methane and other substances in the earthquake area, and the ground emerges along the cracks in the ground during the earthquake, and then ignites by the static electricity released by the earthquake to produce seismic light.
3, during the earthquake, the geomagnetic and geoelectric fields in the earthquake area change sharply, and the electric field and the ionosphere in the atmosphere interact with each other to produce seismic light.
4, the quartz in the rock due to the violent activity of the formation during the earthquake produces a piezoelectric effect, resulting in the formation of a strong electric field, these strong electric fields will produce a large amount of static electricity, static electricity in contact with the air on the ground, will provoke seismic light.
These statements have their own reasons, but there are many people who agree with 1 and 4, and their real formation mechanism needs to be further studied with the assistance of scientific and technological means.
There is also a phenomenon worth paying attention to is that the color of seismic light is also different, there are red, blue, white, yellow, purple, etc., which may be related to the material composition in the formation and the intensity of seismic energy release.
Resources:
"Red Star News" January 9, 2022 article "Qinghai Menyuan 6.9 earthquake found 22 km surface rupture"
"Boiling Point Video" January 9, 2022 Video "Experts Interpret whether the Strong Light of the Qinghai Menyuan Earthquake Horizon is Seismic Light"
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