With a new analysis of the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria in 2023, signals emitted by soil fracturing before the event have been revealed
A study recently published in the journal 'Nature Communications Earth & Environment' revealed how the first signals emitted by an earthquake can allow us to trace the evolution of the soil fracture over time and, therefore, potentially be used for alert the population before the arrival of seismic waves.
The study, entitled “Retrospective performance analysis of a ground shaking early warning system for the 2023 Turkey-Syria”, was created by a team of researchers from “Ettore Pancini” Department of Physics of the University of Naples Federico II and Vesuvian Observatory of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV-OV).
With their research, scientists have demonstrated the potential and effectiveness of a system Seismic Early Warning, i.e. an immediate seismic alert system that allows you to predict the impact of seismic waves on the territory and send an alert message to the site of interest within a few seconds, even before the arrival of the waves themselves, applying it retrospectively to the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on the border between Turkey and Syria on 6 February 2023.
"To conduct our study we used an advanced ground shaking prediction method, based on the measurement of the first P waves and capable of predicting, during an earthquake, the areas in which the ground motion will exceed a threshold limit of potential damage ”, explains Luca Elia, INGV-OV technologist and co-author of the research.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the Seismic Early Warning system, hundreds of accelerograms recorded near the source of the Turkish-Syrian earthquake and acquired by the monitoring network managed by the AFAD agency of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, responsible for managing of emergencies and disasters.
The results showed how a first alert, issued approximately 10 seconds after the origin of the event, would have led to 95% of the sites within the potentially damaged area being correctly alerted, with warning times of between 10 and 60 seconds. Furthermore, the application of the Early Warning system demonstrated that the strong shaking zone predicted by P waves can be detected approximately 20 seconds after the fracture origin.
“The results of our study show how early warning systems based on P-waves can provide timely and reliable warnings, capable of improving the safety of inhabitants of seismic areas and mitigating the risk of extensive damage”he concludes Elijah.
Useful links:
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV)
A study recently published in the journal 'Nature Communications Earth & Environment' revealed how the first signals emitted by an earthquake can allow us to trace the evolution of the soil fracture over time and, therefore, potentially be used for alert the population before the arrival of seismic waves.
The study, entitled “Retrospective performance analysis of a ground shaking early warning system for the 2023 Turkey-Syria”, was created by a team of researchers from “Ettore Pancini” Department of Physics of the University of Naples Federico II and Vesuvian Observatory of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV-OV).
With their research, scientists have demonstrated the potential and effectiveness of a system Seismic Early Warning, i.e. an immediate seismic alert system that allows you to predict the impact of seismic waves on the territory and send an alert message to the site of interest within a few seconds, even before the arrival of the waves themselves, applying it retrospectively to the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on the border between Turkey and Syria on 6 February 2023.
"To conduct our study we used an advanced ground shaking prediction method, based on the measurement of the first P waves and capable of predicting, during an earthquake, the areas in which the ground motion will exceed a threshold limit of potential damage ”, explains Luca Elia, INGV-OV technologist and co-author of the research.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the Seismic Early Warning system, hundreds of accelerograms recorded near the source of the Turkish-Syrian earthquake and acquired by the monitoring network managed by the AFAD agency of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, responsible for managing of emergencies and disasters.
The results showed how a first alert, issued approximately 10 seconds after the origin of the event, would have led to 95% of the sites within the potentially damaged area being correctly alerted, with warning times of between 10 and 60 seconds. Furthermore, the application of the Early Warning system demonstrated that the strong shaking zone predicted by P waves can be detected approximately 20 seconds after the fracture origin.
“The results of our study show how early warning systems based on P-waves can provide timely and reliable warnings, capable of improving the safety of inhabitants of seismic areas and mitigating the risk of extensive damage”he concludes Elijah.
Useful links:
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV)
Figure: Evolution of the magnitude estimated at each station (gray curves) exploiting the P wave amplitude peaks, measured in windows that expand starting from the first arrivals. The average curve in blue outlines the estimate of the magnitude of the earthquake as a function of the seconds elapsed from the origin time. The histogram shows the final distribution of the magnitude estimates.