This is a fascinating subject and one that has huge ramifications as far as ancient history is concerned. How big can an earthquake be?
Robert is the catalyst in supplying four links. The first one is https://phys.org/news/2024-09-nasa-hubble-maven-mystery-mars.html … The headline reads – NASAs Hubble, and MAVEN, helps solve the mystery of Mars escaping water. Ultraviolet Hubble images of Mars discovered a difference in the atmosphere. At perihelion, when Mars orbit was at the closest point to the Sun, reflected sunlight shows a scattering by atmospheric molecules and haze. The polar ice caps and some surface features are also visible. Hubble, and MAVEN, have shown the Martian atmosphere conditions change very quickly. When Mars is closer to the Sun water molecules rise very rapidly through the atmosphere, breaking apart and releasing atoms at high altitudes. Mars, it is thought, was once a very wet planet – as evident by its geology. This has been a feature of recent research on the red planet. Where did all that water go? Again, it has been suggested that some of it became locked up inside the interior of the planet – in the crust. Water is also known to exist in the interior of the Earth’s crust. However, water can also be lost from the top of the atmosphere – and this appears to be what has occurred over the fullness of time. Water molecules are broken apart in Mars atmosphere by sunlight. They split into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Specifically, the researchers measured hydrogen and deuterium, which is a hydrogen atom with a neutron in its nucleus. This neutron gives deuterium twice the mass of hydrogen. Because its mass is high, deuterium escapes into space much more slowly than regular hydrogen. Hence, over time as more hydrogen is lost than deuterium, the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen is built up in the atmosphere. Measuring the ratio in the modern world may provide a clue to how much water was actually present during the warmer, wet period on Mars.
Most of the data comes from the MAVEN spacecraft. However, it is not sensitive enough to see the deuterium emissions at all times of the Martian year. Unlike the Earth, Mars swings far from the Sun in its elliptical orbit during the long Martian winters, and the deuterium emissions become fainter. Hence, the use of Hubble data to fill in the blanks and complete an annual cycle for three Martian years .
Robert comments – Mars behaves like a comet. The closer it is to the Sun it becomes electrically active. Is he right? Comets, like Mars, lose water on their journey around the Sun.
His next link is at https://phys.org/news/2024-09-electricity-generated-earthquakes-secret-giant.html … where we have the headline – electricity generated by earthquakes might be the secret behind giant gold nuggets. The emphasis of the link is on the process of making gold – as it sparkles more than the earthquakes. The mainstream explanation has been, until now, that gold preciptates from hot water rich fluids as they flow through cracks in earth’s crust. In the process gold becomes trapped in quartz veins. Quartz also has a property they found of interest. It possesses piezoelectricity. It generates an electric charge when subject to stress. Can stress from earthquakes do something similar on Earth? The researchers then set out to test that hypothesis. Quartz is also an electrical insulator but gold is a conductor. Once some gold is deposited it becomes a focus for further growth, leading to the creation of nuggets.
Further implcations might involve the formation of big gold deposts – such as the Johannesburg one which has formed around what appears to be an impact crater. Was electricity also involved in this, and if so, do impacts or atmospheric explosions, also involve electricity – but hardly piezoelectricity.
Robert comments – Wal Thornhill, back in 2005, said earthquakes were underground electrical discharges – which leads to his third link https://www.holoscience.com/wp/electric-earthquakes/ … which also describes some of the odd phenomena produced and preceded by earthquakes. Earthquakes changing water levels, or seiches, ground hugging fogs, low frequency electromagnetic emissions, earthquake lights seen on ridges of high ground, or on distant mountains, magnetic anomalies in earth’s dipole field, temperature anomalies over wide areas as seen in satellite images, changes in the plasma density of the ionosphere, and strange animal behaviour. Books have been written about the latter but the idea of earthquake lights was written about by Paul Devereux in two books in the late 20th century, ‘Earth Lights‘ and ‘Earth Lights Revelation‘ in which he explored their existence along fault lines etc. It might be worth rereading them as both are on my bookshelves.
The fourth link is https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasa-discovers-long-sought-global-electric-field-on-earth/ … an ambipolar electric field, a weak but planet wide phenomenon. As fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic field. It is a big driver of the polar wind – a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above the poles.
The day after I put up this post there was an interesting piece of info at https://spaceweather.com … September the 14th 2024. During the geomagnetic storm of September 12th, Jeffery Dixon, who was in Agawa in Ontario, photographed a red band stretching across the sky. According to Space Weather, it was a sign that Earth’s ‘ring current’ had sprung a leak. It was actually what is known as a SAR arc – which were discovered in 1956. They may look like auroral phenomena but they are not. The red glow comes from Earth’s ring current system. Earth, it seems, has rings. Made of electricity. A doughnut shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around the planet. During strong geomagnetic storms thermal energy from the rings can leak on to the atmosphere below it, imprinting a red glow among the auroras