Gravitational waves could allow us to detect earthquakes at the speed of light

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Earthquakes, by their nature, are impossible to predict. The best we can hope for is an early warning system that gives people a chance to hide, but that opportunity is usually measured in seconds or minutes. Cosmology research may provide a better method. A team from the University of Côte d’Azur has developed a machine-learning algorithm that can detect and interpret gravitational waves generated by seismic events at the speed of light.

Currently, our ability to detect the onset of an earthquake depends on several factors, including the proximity of the seismic sensors. There are a lot of gaps in coverage, so sometimes it’s impossible to alert everyone in the danger zone. Google has tried to fill in the loopholes by taking advantage of smartphone sensors, but there’s only so much you can do while waiting for the ground to move under the detector.

The seismic wave moves at about six kilometers per second, and larger earthquakes can saturate sensors and make them difficult to detect early. However, gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light. Astronomers first discovered this phenomenon in 2016 using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which uses sensitive laser detectors to detect tiny spacetime fluctuations. After this discovery, scientists realized that conventional seismic sensors can detect gravitational waves because these events involve a large displacement of mass within the planet. By stacking several detectors on top of each other, it is possible to determine gravitational wave patterns to detect earthquakes very quickly.

The LIGO team visualized gravitational waves from two rapidly spinning black holes in a binary system.

The team, led by postdoctoral researcher Andrea Lisiardi, trained an algorithm using data from thousands of simulated earthquakes before firing it over data records from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan. This seismic event triggered a tsunami, killing about 18,000 and severely damaging the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (see above). The warning came so late that many in the danger zone never knew a wave was approaching, but the algorithm correctly classified Tohoku at 9 degrees after just 50 seconds. This is even faster than the latest warning systems that rely on seismic waves.

This is the good news. The bad news is that this method is currently only effective for earthquakes rated at 8.3 or higher. It is also of little use in areas already covered by seismometers. It may still be useful for tracking large-scale events, which usually begin in the depths of faults and may not reach the surface for ten or 15 minutes. If this system takes just a minute to detect the earthquake via gravitational waves, that gives residents more time to reach safety. The next step is to see if the system can detect tremors in real time, but the future could bring us the speed of light.

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