Saturday, April 11, 2015

Smartphones can help noticing earthquake – NU.nl

This was discovered by scientists at the US Geological Survey. They describe their research in the new, open-access journal Science Advances .

Scientists see salvation in regions like Central America and South East Asia. These camps with violent earthquakes, but can not afford conventional alarm equipment because of the high costs.

The GPS receivers in cell phones, though less accurate than specific earthquake measuring equipment, but provide ongoing movement of the earth in a violent trembling or perceive.

The information about an incipient quake can be processed into a warning message to people in the area whose tremors of the earth are not yet visible. “An electronic warning travels faster than the shaking of an earthquake,” said Professor Craig Glennie who worked on the study.

The researchers tested the feasibility of this ‘crowd sourced’ warning through the simulation of an earthquake with a strength of 7 on the Richter scale and the analysis of data from the disastrous earthquake that struck Japan in 2011.

The mechanism proved to work even if only a small percentage of the residents of the affected area their data would be made available for the warning.

Scientists are signs that weaker quakes are less well observed and that despite lower power yet can be very harmful.

Groningen company is also working on an app that allows smartphone users to measure earthquakes in order to bring them more in map

By:. NU.nl/Marieke Buijs

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