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Experimental Study on the Role of Water in the TIR Anomaly before Earthquake
Shanjun Liu1,2 , Qunlong Chen1 , Guoliang Li1 , and Lixin Wu2
1 College of Resources and Environment Hebei Polytechnic University, Tangshan 063000, China 2 Institute for GIS/RS/GPS & Digital Mine Research Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China

Abstract TIR anomaly before tectonic earthquake is becoming a research hotspot for seismology and remote sensing. Past study showed the thermal infrared (TIR) anomaly precursors appear before violent earthquake, and the anomaly appeared mostly in the water area of earth surface. To study the mechanisms of Infrared anomaly a group of contrastive infrared radiation imaging detection experiment of dry rock and wet rock in uniaxially compressing process is carried out. The experimental results show that: The increment of IR radiation temperature of wet rock increases greater than the dry rock in the loading process. AIRT (average infrared radiation temperature)-time curve of the wet rock keeps more accordant variation with the loadtime curve. On the basis of the experimental result analysis the mechanism of TIR anomaly before tectonic earthquake are discussed, and some views are also put forward to explain the TIR anomaly phenomenon. 1. INTRODUCTION

TIR anomaly before tectonic earthquake is becoming a research hotspot for seismology and remote sensing. Past study showed the TIR anomaly precursors appeared before violent earthquake, and many anomalies appeared in the water area of earth surface. Even though the earthquake occurred in the land the TIR anomaly appeared frequently in river, lake or the vicinity of sea. Qiang [7], Kong [4], Xu [10], Lu [5] and Yurur [11] reported that there were large area of TIR anomalies in satellite remote sensing images before ocean earthquakes. Cui [1] reported that TIR anomaly appeared on the northwest of Bohai bay in China before Zhangbei Ms 6.2 earthquake. Fig. 1 shows a positive thermal anomaly area appeared on the Northwest of Bohai bay 1 days before the Zhangbei Ms 6.2 earthquake. The highest temperature area limited originally by coastline had broken though the limitation and developed towards the northwest of Bohai bay. Fig. 2 shows TIR anomaly of Hualian Ms 6.8 earthquake appearing in the surrounding sea region of Twaiwan island four days before the earthquake. The color of the anomaly area in the images is wine and its expressive temperature is 24 C higher than the background area whose color is yellow. Why did the TIR anomalies frequently appear in water region? What is the mechanism of this phenomenon? To answer above question the paper carries out a group of contrastive IR detection experiments of dry rock and wet rock in uniaxially compressing process. Some views are also put forward to explain the TIR anomaly phenomenon based on the experimental results.
2. COMPARATIVE EXPERIMENT OF IR RADIATION OF WET ROCK AND DRY ROCK IN LOADING PROCESS 2.1. Eperimental Design

Three kinds of typical crustal rock, sandstone, marble and granodiorite are processed as standard cylindrical samples of diameter 50 mm and length 100 mm. Every kind of rock samples are divides into two groups, one group is dried and the another group is dipped in water up to saturation. A servocontrol loader, WAW-200, is used to uniaxially load the samples. A modern TIR imaging system, VarioSCAN 3021ST with temperature precision 0.03 C and 360 240 pixel is applied for the TIR radiation detection and image recording. The IR imaging system is aligned in level with the rock sample and approximately 1 m away from it. The loading was displacement controlled at 0.3 mm/min. In order to minimize environmental eects on the detection of TIR radiation from the rock surface, a paper box with a circular hole was used for enclosing both the rock sample and the load platform.

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epicenter

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Figure 1: Satellite thermal IR anomaly images before Zhangbei earthquake (Jan. 10, 1998), (a) TIR image 18 days before earthquake, (b) TIR anomaly image 1 day before earthquake.
119 121 123 125e E 29e N 28e N 27 26 25 24 epicenter 23 22 21 272K 282K 292K 302K 272K 282K 292K 302K epicenter 120 122 124 126e E

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Figure 2: Satellite TIR anomaly distribution before Hualian Ms 6.8 earthquake (April 20, 1991). 2.2. Experimental Results 2.2.1. Comparison of AIRT-time Curve

AIRT (average IR radiation temperature) represents the average TIR radiation energy from the rock samples surface. The experimental results show that the AIRT variation of wet rock is dierent from the that of dry rock in the loading process. Fig. 3 shows AIRT -time curve comparison of wet sandstone with dry sandstone in the loading process. The curves show the features: 1) The AIRT -time curve of dry rock uctuates more strongly than wet rock, which indicates that the IR radiation variation of wet rock is more smooth; 2) AIRT variation of dry rock in initial loading stage is little or the AIRT decreases, but the AIRT of wet rock increases in initial stage; 3) the AIRT variation pattern of wet rock is consistent with the stress variation. But the AIRT time curve of dry rock departures from its stress-time curve. This indicates that the relationship between IR radiation and stress for wet rock is closer than that for dry rock. The result indicates that infrared detection technique can be applied to monitor the stress change of the wet rock; 4) Under the action of equal load, the IR radiation temperature of wet rock increases greater than the dry rock. Fig. 3 shows that the AIRT of a dry sandstone sample increases about 0.1 C before rock fracture, but the AIRT of a wet sandstone sample increases about 0.5 C. Table 1 shows that the mean AIRT increment of 5 dry sandstone samples before fracture is 0.073 C, whereas that of 5 wet sandstone samples is 0.318 C, which is 4 times of the former. This indicates that the wet rock can give out more quantity of heat when it is loaded.

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Figure 3: AIRT -time curve comparison of dry sandstone sample with wet sandstone sample, (a) Dry sandstone, (b) Wet sandstone.

Table 1: Statistic result on the AIRT increment of all rock samples before fracture. Rock type Wet or dry Sample number s-01 s-02 Wet s-03 s-04 Sandstone s-05 gs-01 gs-02 Dry gs-03 gs-04 gs-05 Granodiorite Wet Dry Wet Marble Dry 5d-8 5d-10 5-c5 2-1 2-2 2-3 2-g1 2-g2 AIRT increment before fracture/ C 0.268 0.248 0.314 0.492 0.271 0.044 0.065 0.107 0.161 0.075 0.146 0.114 0.110 0.209 0.362 0.321 0.058 0.021 0.0185 0.297 0.130 0.110 0.073 0.318 Mean AIRT increment/ C

2.2.2. Comparison of IR Image

The infrared image reects the temperature eld distribution of rock sample. Fig. 4 shows the comparison result of IR image of wet rock sample with dry rock sample in the loading process. The images of Fig. 4 are got by the dierence with the rst image. 1) The radiation temperature of rock part near the loading head (top part of sample) is higher than the part far from the loading head for all samples, but the maximal radiation temperature increment of wet rock samples in the top part is higher than that of dry rock samples. Fig. 4 shows that the maximal increment of wet rock sample in the top part is up to 1.04 C, which is 0.6 C higher than that of dry rock sample;

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2) The IR image feature of wet rock samples is dierent from that of dry rock samples at the moment of failure. The IR radiation temperature of most dry rock samples rises obviously along the fracture at the moment of failure, but that of wet rock sample rises lesser. This indicates when the deep and wet rock fractures to result in a earthquake happening, the stress heat eect is not more obvious than that before quake.

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Figure 4: Dierence IR image comparison of a wet sandstone sample (top) with a dry sandstone sample (low) in loading process, the right part is the photos of two samples after fracture. 3. DISCUSSION ON THE MECHANISM OF IR ANOMALY BEFORE EARTHQUAKE

Qiang [8] considered that those gases such as CO2 , CH4 , H2 etc. go up from the deep earth and the cranny of the rock and then enhance the greenhouse eect in the atmosphere though the radiation of the sun and electromagnetic eld action. Tronin [9] thought that the temperature increase of the earth surface before earthquake maybe hydro-geologyical factors or the greenhouse eect play a main role in the forming of anomalies. Geng [3] put forward stress-thermal viewpoint based on physical experiment. He deemed that the thermal anomaly before earthquake was caused by tectonic stress. Freund [2] thought the recombination of stress-activated positive hole in rock face resulting in infrared emission. Pulinets [6] thought the near-ground air ionization due to enhanced radon emission leading to the condensation of water vapor from the atmosphere and, hence, to the release of latent heat. It is well known that earthquake is the result of crustal stress action. Therefore all phenomena related to earthquake is the eect of crustal stress action, including the satellite TIR anomaly. Above experiments indicate that the temperature of wet rock rises more than the dry rock under loading. As the experimental loading mode is uniaxilaly compression the temperature increment under loading is relatively lower. However the actual earthquake occurs in the deep crust where the stress is hundreds times of the experiments. Thus the temperature increment induced by stress action will be very high. These stress-heat can be transferred by the water or gas of crust up to the surface of earth to make the temperature rise. Meanwhile the greenhouse eect caused by the high-density gases (CO2 , CH4 , H2 etc.) and the thermal eect caused by the wakening up of electromagnetic eld are the factors to sub-eect of stress-thermal eect. Finally multi-factor interaction leads to the TIR anomaly before earthquake.
4. CONCLUSIONS

Many TIR anomaly precursors appear before violent earthquake, and the anomaly appeared mostly in the water area of earth surface. In order to realize the mechanism of this phenomenon the contrastive infrared radiation imaging detection experiment of dry rock and wet rock in uniaxially compressing process is carried out. The experimental results show that the increment of IR radiation temperature of wet rock increases more than the dry rock. Relationship of wet rock between stress and IR radiation temperature is closer than that of dry rock. The results indicate there is a mass of heat produced by the wet rock under stress action. We think that the IR anomaly appearing

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before earthquake is mainly due to the stress heat from wet rock in the deep curst, multi-factor interaction leads to the TIR anomaly before earthquake. Water plays a intensifying role in the TIR Anomaly before Earthquake.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (No. 50774017) and the National Outstanding Youth Fund (No. 50525414).
REFERENCES

1. Cui, C. Y., et al., Monitoring the thermal IR anomaly of Zhangbei earthquake precursor by satellite remote sensing technique, Proc. 20th Asia RS Congress, 11791184, Hongkong, China, 1999. 2. Freund, F. T., Rocks that crackle and sparkle and glow: Strange pre-earthquake phenomena, Journal of Scientic Exploreation, Vol. 17, 3771, 2003. 3. Geng, N., P. Yu, et al., The simulated experimental studies on cause of thermal infrared precursor of earthquake, Earthquake, Vol. 18, No. 1, 8388, 1998. 4. Kong, L. and Z. Qiang, Anomaly of thermal infrared increase temperature before Taiwan strait earthquake of Ms 7.3, Journal of Seismology, No. 3, 3437, 1997. 5. Lu, Z., Z. Qiang, and B. Wu, A tentative interpretation of the formation of high temperature anomaly in satellite based thermal infrared scanning images(STISI) of the South China Sea before earthquake, Acta Geoscientia Sinica, Vol. 23, No. 1, 4246, 2002. 6. Pulinets, S., D. Ouzounov, A. Karelin, et al., The physical nature of thermal anomalies observed before strong earthquakes, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Vol. 31, 143153, 2006. 7. Qiang, Z., C. Dian, L. Li, et al., Satellite thermal infrared anomaly and earthquake prediction in advance and in short-term, Proceedings of The the 30th International Geological Congress, 186194, Beijing, China, 1996. 8. Qiang, Z., Satellite-based prediction earthquakes, Earsel Newsletter, Vol. 47, 2126, 2001. 9. Tronin, A. A., Thermal IR satellite sensor data application for earthquake research in china, Int. J. Remote Sensing, Vol. 21, 31693177, 2000. 10. Xu, X., X. Xu, and Y. Wang, Satellite infrared anomaly before Nantou Ms = 7.6 earthquake in Taiwan, China, Acta Seismologica Sinica, Vol. 22, No. 6, 666669, 2000. 11. Yurur, M. T., The positive temperature anomaly as detected by Landsat TM data in the eastern Marmara Sea (Turkey): Possible link with the 1999 Umit earthquake, International Journal of Remote Sensing, Vol. 27, No. 56, 12051218, 2006.