Correlations between VAB electron loss detected by NOAA and

strong seismic activity used to improve forecasting of M

earthquakes
C. Fidani1
1
Central Italy Electromagnetic Network, Fermo, Italy, c.fidani@virgilio.it

To correlate seismic activity with NOAA data, a Ntuple was created which contains
earthquake data including: event time, location, magnitude and depth. The values of the
corresponding L-shells of the earthquake epicentres projected to different altitudes were also
calculated by the same methodology used for particles and included in the Ntuples. This was
done to determine the possibility of a physical link between earthquakes and particle fluxes
and their space-time locations. The earthquake list was downloaded from the Earthquake
Center of United States Geological Survey (USGS) at http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/epic/epic.html,
and has been adjusted to eliminate foreshocks and aftershocks.
NOAA data consisted in binary files which were stored in Ntuples where the time step was
8 seconds. From July 1, 1998 to December 31, 2014, binary data were downloaded from
NOAA (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/satellite/poes/dataaccess.html) and examined to
exclude uncorrected instrument operations through their corresponding flags. Furthermore,
the electron counting rates were corrected for proton contamination using software
downloaded from the Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory (http://virbo.org/POES#Processing).
In order to include the geomagnetic and extraterrestrial influences on the particle fluctuations,
the counting rates data were associated to daily averages of the geomagnetic Ap index and
SID (http://www.aavso.org/solar-sids), as well as three hour averages of the Ap index
(ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/GEOMAGNETICDATA/APSTAR/apindex).
Plot in Figure 1 reports the statistical correlation calculated over more than 16 years of data
collecting the time difference between strong earthquake occurrence and electron burst
detection TEQ TEB from -72 to 72 hours. The distribution shapes and average values (in red)
were compared with standard deviations (in yellow) of correlation events, evidencing super-
poissonian distributions. Note that, based on super-poissonian fitting of correlation
distribution a significant correlation peak appeared between 2 and 3 hours of positive time
difference, which means that the electron burst was observed before the corresponding
earthquake. The peak at 2 - 3 hours started to be significant when considering earthquake
epicentre projections above 1,400 km altitudes.

Fig. 1. The correlation between strong earthquakes and electron burst calculated over 144 hours, the
significant peak is above the threshold of 99% in yellow, the average is the red line.

Correlation peak significance was also calculated taking into account solar influence. It
was made by dividing the peak magnitude minus average value, by the variance. Results are
shown in Figure 2 left, where the number of sigma distributions are depicted for various
earthquake altitude projections using the Ap index threshold seasonally modulated or the Ap
index constant threshold equal to 18. These values were chosen based on past studies. The Ap
index constant threshold permitted to obtain up to 5 sigma of peak significance above the
average value, as well as Ap index seasonally modulated, shown in Figure 2 right permitted to
obtain up to 6 sigma of peak significance above the average value.

Fig. 2. The correlation significance, in terms of sigma on the left, where colours define the number of
correlation events, was calculated for different Ap index thresholds; both maximum numbers of sigma
were obtained for 2,400 km earthquake altitude projections.
 Epicentre locations having earthquakes correlated with electron bursts were concentrated
in both the Indonesian and Philippine Regions (Fidani, 2015). As was shown, positions could
be linked in a causal way with some kind of electron disturbances occurring several hours
before the main shocks. In fact, by taking into account that electrons drift eastwards and that
the earthquake epicentres were located west of the electron burst detection positions, a causal
connection between them can be supposed. In turn, if any kind of signal was emitted around
the earthquake epicentres, it could have reached the ionosphere above the epicentres. Therein,
it would have perturbed electron motions and electron bursts that would have been detected
some time after. Indeed, based on electron energies detected by NOAA particle telescopes, it
was calculated to be of the order of at least 2 - 7 hours, thus the perturbation process would
have occurred at least 4 -10 hours before the earthquakes (Fidani, 2015).
Magnetic pulses detected during the Norcia seismic swarm (Orsini and Fidani, 2017 and
2018), culminated with a main-shock of Mw = 6.6 occurred on October 30, 2016, gave new
interest to the physical process which could be the link between earthquakes and electron
bursts. The physical interaction consists in magnetic fluctuations coupled with charged
particles which are able to modify pitch angles of electron motions inside the Van Allen Belts.
Pitch angle variations generate variations in bouncing altitudes of charged particles, with a
consequent presence of greater fluxes of electrons at satellite altitudes. However, the
correlation above regarding earthquakes which occurred in the Indonesian and Philippine
Regions are located at different geographical coordinates and, overall, at different
geomagnetic coordinates. This implicates that, if magnetic pulses are able to reach the
ionosphere, different interaction times occur with different populations of Van Allen Belts for
Italian earthquakes with respect to those concerning the above correlation.
If such a causal connection exists between earthquakes and electron bursts, a question can
be raised: could the 2 - 3 hours correlation be used for strong earthquake forecasting? The
answer to this question can be positive if the probability calculation of a strong earthquake
over the next 2 - 3 hours refers to Indonesia or the Philippines. Probability can be calculated
throughout the relation between covariance and cross correlation (Fidani, 2018)

, (1)

where EQ and EB indicate earthquake and electron burst events, respectively. Which
means that, if a correlation exists between earthquakes and electron bursts, and the time
difference is chosen to be that of correlations between earthquake and electron burst events,
the probability of a strong earthquake is increased of a term proportional to the correlation.

References

- Fidani C.; 2015: Particle precipitation prior to large earthquakes of both the Sumatra and
Philippine Regions: a statistical analysis, Journal of Asian Earth Science, 114, 384-392.
- Fidani C.; 2018: Improving earthquake forecasting by correlations between strong
earthquakes and NOAA electron bursts. Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci., 29, 117-130.
- Orsini M. and Fidani C.; 2017: Magnetic perturbations observed around the October 30,
2016, Norcia, 36th GNGTS, Novembrer 14 16, 2017, Trieste, 316-318.
- Orsini M. and Fidani C.; 2018: Modelling magnetic pulse swarms that anticipated the 2016
Norcia, and 2017 Capitignano, Central Italy earthquakes, EMSEV 2018, September 17
21.