Originally published January 6 2006
GPS satellite receivers may predict tsunamis
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
GPS satellite receivers may someday replace or aid the coastal seismic stations that record deep-sea earthquakes, which can cause tsunamis. Seismic and GPS data together could calculate the strength of a quake quickly and in real time.
Unlike seismometers, GPS receivers can measure the movement of the ground in real time.
Because quake magnitude is a direct function of how much the earth shifts, Freymueller has demonstrated that the receivers can obtain precise measurements of a massive quake's severity in as little as 20 minutes.
"Seismometers measure the velocity of the ground, and you have to collect a number of cycles of the important wave in order to get that measurement," he said.
Freymueller envisions a new tsunami-warning strategy that would use seismic and GPS data in tandem to calculate a wave-causing quake's strength soon after its onset.
Seismic measurements of very large quakes like the one that caused last year's Indian Ocean tsunami take several hours to fine-tune, because the moving vibrations must be recorded at a variety of stations in different locations.
When the quake that caused the giant Southeast Asian wave first hit, scientists at the PTWC estimated its magnitude at 8.0, but revised their estimate to 8.5 an hour later.
Yehuda Bock, a geologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has also investigated the possibilities of using GPS receivers in tsunami-warning systems.
Like Freymueller and Bock, Peter MacDoran, a GPS expert who works for George Washington University's Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute, wants to make GPS receivers part of disaster-prediction networks.
But he foresees using them in a different way: to track the movement of tsunami-associated pressure waves in the Earth's atmosphere.
"Quakes that cause tsunamis create deformation on the surface of the water, and that causes an atmospheric 'thump,'" MacDoran said.
Digital processing of the changed signals coming from nearby receivers would indicate that a tsunami was imminent.
MacDoran has proposed setting up networks of GPS-connected personal computers to monitor these signals, especially in tsunami-prone areas like Southeast Asia, the United States' Atlantic coast and the Pacific Northwest.
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