Earthquake Prediction

On February 6, 2023, centered in the province of Kahramanmaraş, southerrn Turkey, two major earthquakes occurred with magnitudes of 7.7 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, with a 9-hour interval between them. These earthquakes resulted in tremendous number of deaths and injuries in 11 cities in the region. In events like these, dead-at-scene rates (coded black in disaster triage situations) are high, and additionally, crush syndrome (CS) is frequently encountered in patients rescued from the debris [1]. CS, also known as traumatic rhabdomyolysis, is most commonly seen in earthquakes, wars, mining accidents, landslides, volcanic eruptions, motor vehicle accidents, and multiple trauma victims, especially those who are trapped for a considerable time, which may result in CS and compartment syndrome [2]. Additionally, CS can be encountered in the emergency department (ED) for routine reasons such as poisoning, stroke, and falls [3]. Theoretically, any situation that results in prolonged immobili...

  When an earthquake causes a landslide, debris flow, or erosion, it can change the makeup of nearby lakes by introducing larger sediment particles, causing faster sediment buildup, and affecting carbon sequestration. The sediments that build up on lake bottoms act as a historical archive, recording the lake's biological, physical, and chemical changes and how they affect microbes such as diatoms (microscopic glass-like algae). Yet little is known about how sudden, earthquake-driven disturbances may affect lake ecosystems. Xue and team looked at the long-term changes in Lake Cuopu (Lake Tsopu) in the Himalayas. The 200-kilometer radius around the lake experienced 63 earthquakes greater than magnitude 5 between 1900 and 2017. The lake's high altitude, alpine climate, and low human activity made it an ideal site to examine the microbial and geochemical changes caused by these earthquakes. In 2017, researchers took a 45-centimeter-long sediment core from the center of Lake Cuopu, ...

Editor’s summary Earthquake early warning systems depend on real-time analysis of waves detected at nearby seismic stations or by smartphone accelerometers. The latter approach, although less sensitive, is a promising way to offer alerts in areas without seismic stations. In a major step forward, Allen  et al . describe the outcomes of an alert system rolled out to Android phones in 98 countries, which increased total warning system access 10-fold to 2.5 billion people over 3 years. Issuing more than 1200 alerts over that period, the system recorded low-magnitude errors and provided preshake warnings consistent with other detection systems but on a much larger scale. —Angela Hessler Abstract Earthquake early-warning systems are increasingly being deployed as a strategy to reduce losses in earthquakes, but the regional seismic networks they require do not exist in many earthquake-prone countries. We use the global Android smartphone network to develop an earthquake detection capabil...

List of seismically hazardous areas where destructive (7 points and higher) earthquakes are possible.  Azerbaijan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brunei, Guatemala, Greece, Georgia, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Israel, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Yemen, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malta, Morocco, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Russia (Caucasus, Kamchatka, Kuril Islands, Altai, Sakhalin), El Salvador, North Macedonia, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Fiji, Philippines, Chile, Montenegro, Ecuador, Eritrea, Jamaica, Japan. If you, your family or loved ones live in one of these earthquake-prone regions, prepare for possible disaster in advance: secure cabinets, shelves, TVs and heavy objects remove heavy objects from the top shelves secure c...

DAVIDSON, North Carolina  In 2001, social theorist bell hooks warned about the dangers of a loveless zeitgeist. In “All About Love: New Visions,” she lamented “the lack of an ongoing public discussion … about the practice of love in our culture and in our lives.” Back then, the internet was at a crossroads. The dot-com crash had bankrupted many early internet companies, and people wondered if the technology was long for this world. The doubts were unfounded. In only a few decades, the internet has merged with our bodies as smartphones and mined our personalities via algorithms that know us more intimately than some of our closest friends. It has even constructed a secondary social world. Yet as the internet has become more integrated in our daily lives, few would describe it as a place of love, compassion and cooperation. Study after study describe how social media platforms promote alienation and disconnection – in part because many algorithms reward behaviors like trolling, cyber...