Can heavy snowfall cause earthquakes? A new study suggests a link.

A new theory suggests that heavy snowfall could be a factor in triggering swarms of earthquakes, evidence that what happens on and above the Earth's surface may play a role in events below ground.

That's according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, which suggests a possible link between heavy snowfall on Japan's Noto Peninsula and thousands of earthquakes measured there since late 2020.

It is one of the first studies to link changes in weather or climate to earthquake activity.

“These large snowfall events appear to correlate well with the onset of these large earthquake swarms,” said William Frank, study author and assistant professor of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at MIT. “We must not forget that climate itself can also play a role in changing the stress state at depth where earthquakes occur.”

The study does not say that changes in climate or weather directly cause earthquakes. Instead, it suggests that the rate of earthquakes in a given area can increase or decrease due to changes in how water moves beneath the surface and the amount of pressure exerted by the weight of snow.

David Shelley, a research geophysicist at the Geological Society of America, said the study raises interesting questions, but more research is needed to validate its findings.

“What they show is that seismic activity seems to start and increase after times of snowfall. It's an interesting observation, and I'm not sure it's conclusive,” he said.

However, Shelley expects other seismologists to be keenly interested in the research.

“Sequencing is a topic of great interest in the community. This is the first paper to suggest there may be an environmental factor,” Shelley said.

A house damaged by the earthquake on the Noto Peninsula, Japan, on January 14. Akram Muthana/Anadolu via Getty Images file

The study evaluated thousands of earthquakes that struck Japan's Noto Peninsula, which lies about 190 miles northwest of Tokyo on the Sea of ​​Japan. In 2021, after heavy snowfall, the rate of earthquakes in the region increased dramatically, with hundreds of them recorded daily.

“They've seen a factor of 10 increase in the number of earthquakes in this area compared to what was happening previously,” Frank said.

The largest earthquake in the swarm was a 7.5 magnitude earthquake on New Year's Day this year. More than 240 deaths have been associated with this major shock, according to the Japanese Red Cross Society.

The timing of the swarm was also unusual compared to the typical sequence of aftershocks, according to Frank.

“They have this statistical signature that suggests the earthquakes are driven by something else,” he said.

An earthquake-affected road buried under snow on Japan's Noto Peninsula in January. Akram Muthanna/Anadolu via Getty Images file

He and the other study authors compared the pattern of earthquakes on the Noto Peninsula to a pattern of pressure within subsurface pores. This model takes into account factors above ground that change the pressure within the rocks beneath it, such as seasonal changes in sea level, fluctuations in atmospheric pressure, heavy rain, or snow events.

The results indicated that the weight of the snowpack on the Noto Peninsula led to increased pressure in those pores. The researchers believe that pressure changes from the addition and removal of weight as snow accumulates and then melts could destabilize pre-existing faults.

“If you have enough snow, it will push the ground down, and if you remove the snow, it will bounce back,” Frank said.

Some previous research has also suggested that environmental factors can play a role in initiating earthquakes. In a 2019 study, Shelley and his colleagues found that spring snowmelt flowing into cracks in the ground near a caldera in the area around Mammoth Lakes, California, likely triggered a cluster of earthquakes.

Melting ice has rapidly recharged groundwater, and pressure changes appear to trigger activity on relatively shallow faults. The researchers found that seismic activity in the region has historically been about 37 times more likely during wet periods than during dry periods.

Such research has sparked scientists' curiosity about whether climate change could have a small effect on the behavior of earthquakes.

“There are more studies that show a link in some cases between the timing of earthquakes and these processes that occur at the surface,” Shelley said. “My understanding of climate change projections is that there is more extreme weather, more prolonged dry spells and more intense periods of rain. This may make these impacts more pronounced.

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