Earthquakes seem most intense after cosmic rays strike. Here’s why

A new study finds that the Earth shakes more after intense cosmic radiation hits its surface.

The surprising study by a team of Polish researchers analyzed 50 years’ worth of data and found that the intensity of global seismic activity correlates with the average variation in the intensity of secondary particles generated by cosmic radiation with a time interval of about two weeks. Secondary cosmic radiation results from the interactions of cosmic rays and the Earth’s atmosphere, which indicates that the correlation between the two phenomena may not be related to the intensity of the incoming cosmic rays, but rather to their ability to penetrate the Earth’s defenses.

The team said they ruled out the possibility that the observed association was due to chance alone.

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If the connection is confirmed, scientists can use it to better predict powerful earthquakes that cause massive structural damage and human casualties, potentially reducing the impact of such natural disasters.

Pyotr Humola, coordinator of the Extremely Distributed Cosmic Ray Observatory (CREDO), said in his statement. “However, its physical foundations are wholly rational.”

CREDO is a virtual international cosmic ray observatory that collects and processes data from a range of detectors, from cutting-edge scientific instruments to volunteers’ regular smartphones. Its primary goal is to monitor global changes in the flux of secondary cosmic radiation that reaches the surface of our planet and that is created in the stratosphere when cosmic radiation particles collide with gas molecules and cause a cascade of secondary particles.

Scientists believe that the strange relationship between cosmic radiation and seismic activity can be explained by the behavior of eddy currents in our planet’s liquid core that drive the generation of Earth’s magnetic field. This field, also known as the magnetosphere, is responsible for deflecting the charged particles that make up cosmic radiation.

Earth’s magnetosphere helps protect Earth from harmful space weather. (Photo credit: MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)

The team reasons that large earthquakes may be related to disturbances in the flow of matter that drives the Earth’s dynamo, which also affects the magnetosphere. This, in turn, will affect the ability of primary charged particles to penetrate the planet’s atmosphere, which will have an impact on the amount of secondary cosmic radiation particles detected on the planet’s surface.

The CREDO team looked at cosmic ray intensity data collected by the Neutron Monitor Database project and the Pierre Auger Observatory, choosing these observatories because they are located on different sides of the equator and use various detection methods.

The data sets were checked against changes in solar activity detailed in the Solar Impact Data Analysis Center database and information on seismic activity recorded by the US Geological Survey.

Using several statistical techniques, the scientists saw that over the studied period, a correlation appeared between changes in the intensity of secondary cosmic radiation and the total magnitude of all earthquakes with magnitudes greater than or equal to four. This correlation is only apparent when the cosmic ray data has been shifted ahead of the seismic data by 15 days. The fact that changes in cosmic radiation come before earthquakes suggests that the correlation could be used as the basis for a future earthquake warning system.

However, what wasn’t clear from the team’s research was whether this apparent correlation could be used to predict where on Earth an earthquake would strike. This is because changes in the intensity of cosmic rays and earthquakes were only correlated when seismic activity on a global scale was taken into account. The link disappeared in the site-specific analysis conducted by CREDO.

“In the scientific world, it is accepted that a discovery can be said to have been made when the level of statistical confidence for the supporting data reaches five sigma or standard deviations,” Humola explained. “For the observed correlation, we got more than six sigma, which means less than a one-in-a-billion chance that the correlation is due to chance. So, we have a very good statistical basis for claiming that we really detected the existing phenomenon.”

The research captures the fact that Earth’s massive magnetic field can actually act as a huge and extremely sensitive particle detector, many times larger than any man-made instrument that does the same job.

“The most important thing at this stage of research is that we have established a link between the cosmic radiation recorded on our planet’s surface and its seismicity – and if there’s anything we can be sure of, it’s that our observation points lead to completely new and exciting research opportunities.”

To join investigations of cosmic rays, you can turn your smartphone into a cosmic ray detector by installing the free CREDO Detector app on Google Play or App Store.

The research has been published in the Journal of Physics of the Atmosphere, Sun, and Earth.

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