Natural Wonders: Earthquake Lights » Explorersweb

During an earthquake, strange lights sometimes appear in the sky. Observers are baffled, and scientists are also not sure what they can do.

If you see these ominous lights, don’t panic. It is not the end of the world and aliens did not come to invade. Recently, images and footage revealed a strange lighting phenomenon before, during and after the 7.1 earthquake in Mexico City in early September 2021.

Theories ranged from sudden weather changes to unidentified flying objects. The topic spread on the Internet. But this isn’t the first time these strange lights have appeared in our sky during a severe earthquake.

Lights come in many forms

Earthquake lights (EQL) have had many names over the years, including rock lightning, ball lightning, and streamers. The scientific term is luminescence, or sometimes hereditary luminescence. The appearance of lights tends to confuse people because they do not adhere to a single shape or color. It can be balls of light, flame, bright lines across the sky, glowing colors of blue, red, white, violet, and pink. It can last from a few seconds to several minutes.

Earthquake lights in New Zealand. Photo: Kiwi Suri/Instagram

The first record of this phenomenon dates back to AD 869 when the Sanriku earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated Japan. The earthquake was estimated to be over 8.0 on the Richter scale. A translation from the National Historic Register of Japan, called Sandai Jitsuroku, stated that “a great earthquake occurred in Mutsu Prefecture with some strange light in the sky.”

The Japanese Historical Earthquake Archive has recorded about 55 instances of these lights throughout Japan’s history. Earthquake lights have also appeared in other places around the world, particularly during earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 and above. It has occurred in the 1811-1812 earthquakes in Missouri, the infamous San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the 1988 Saguenay earthquake in Canada, the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake in Italy, the 2017 Chiapas earthquake in Mexico, and many more.

While scientists have not determined the causes of these lights, it likely has something to do with the types of rocks present. Yubik Inomoto of Shinshu University noted that the lights appeared at the same time as the landslides. He conducted experiments on granite, limestone, lava, and others to determine whether light was emitted by cracking, friction, or chemical reactions within the rock.

Different rocks, different colors

Enomoto broke rock samples and found that the granite had a severe reaction. It sparked a bright white spark. Other rocks behaved differently: rhyolite released orange lightning; Limestone, intense red glow.

Enomoto also believes that rocks containing quartz are more susceptible to luminous reactions. It is possible that during an earthquake, when different rocks break and fly with each other, they create these changing widths. However, it has not yet been proven that landslides are fully responsible.

Lights in the sky before a magnitude 8 earthquake in Sichuan, China, in 2008. Photo: YouTube

Some scientists suggest that high levels of stress in rocks during an earthquake cause the chemical bonds in the rocks to break and oxygen to ionize. These ions escape from the rocks and travel to the atmosphere, where they emit light.

This ionization hypothesis has been tested in the laboratory, and it appears that rocks under pressure release ions. The 9.0 Tohoku earthquake in 2011 confirmed this. Here, a large number of electrons in the atmosphere occurred a few minutes before the start of the vibration. This theory is still under consideration, however.

The Earth’s magnetic field or the ionosphere may also play a role: a similar process to the formation of the aurora borealis may occur in regions of high tension. However, this is a less popular theory.

Suppressed electrical charges?

Oddly enough, most of these lights occur in parts of the world where tectonic plates overlap less with each other. One seismic study suggests that electric currents from the Earth’s mantle escape through vertical faults in the fault. These currents are called positive holes. When they surface, the ionization may emit glowing lights. Other vertical geological formations such as dams can also contain electrical charges, which, once released, are released into the air.

In 2014, Troy Scheinbrot of Rutgers University noted that when grains of the same type of rock rub together, they generate an electric charge. The charge interacts with the air, thereby electrifying it. This creates flashes of bright light. The tests were repeated and the same result was reproduced. This hack seems more in line with Enomoto’s hypothesis.

All of these theories and results are promising. But now that scientists understand this mystery, we may need more earthquakes before they can finally solve it.

About the author Christine D’Abroe

Christine de Abreu is a writer (and occasional photographer) based in sunny Trinidad and Tobago.

Since graduating from the University of Leicester with a BA in English and History, she pursued a writing career full time, exploring several fields before settling on travel and exploration. While studying for an additional Diploma in Travel Journalism with the British College of Journalism, she began writing for ExWeb.

She currently works for a travel magazine in Trinidad as an editorial assistant and is also an ExWeb weirdo woman, reporting on natural world anomalies as well as general stories from the exploration world.

Although she’s not a climber (yet!), she is a bush hunter and has been known to make friends with iguanas and has been adapted from the Lord of the Rings trilogy from start to finish.

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