As a geologist, I am confronted by a layman with the most nagging question, ‘can earthquakes be predicted?’ followed by ‘can animals sense the earthquake?’ The answer is multifaceted. In ancient times, the theist explanation was that the imaginary supreme divine unleashed its wrath on the heretics of the society for not following the commandments. However, such concocted stories do not hold ground in light of scientific advancement.
“Earthquakes are triggered when two slabs of rock meeting at a fault-line can no longer resist the forces acting on them, and slip”, most common along plate boundaries. This geological process happens underground, anywhere from the surface to deep depths of 700 kms, within the layers of earth. As the rocks are hard and brittle at these depths, the movement of plates builds up stress within the rocks that ultimately gives way to the stress release in the form of breakage.
Scientists have the moral responsibility to minimise the loss of human life by developing techniques to predict earthquakes using deterministic variables. Predictions of such a disaster seek to analyse the precursor events having statistical coherence to the occurrence of earthquakes. Geologists all over the world have tried several algorithms that take into account several factors related to stress build up in the crust, movement of plates, and anomalous release of gases, groundwater changes or changes in electrical conductivity of crustal material etc, using a plethora of sophisticated geophysical devices. These parameters are highly heterogeneous and affect each other in a very sensitive and complex way. An earthquake generates energy that travels around the globe in the form of two types of waves, and if we track these waves, prediction of an impending disaster is possible, albeit only by a few seconds.
The inability of science to provide a satisfactory answer to this question opened doors to various instances of strange animal behaviour preceding an earthquake. One study conducted in 2018 highlighted that the search term ‘animal earthquake precursor’ on Google yielded 28000 results, while a search on Web of Science yielded 2327 results. This discrepancy between public perception and scientific research shows that speculations and the craving for sensations exist on the one hand, and complete rejection exists on the other.
In reality, this behaviour may be influenced by some hitherto unknown parameters. One also needs to assess the purported ‘strange’ behaviour that is proven to be unusual within the group of animals under study. The scientists also possibly carry a bias in relating any behavioural change to the future chance occurrence of an earthquake.
Lastly, some have proposed a theory of ‘pain waves’ that cause earthquakes. The theory contends that intense stimulation of nociceptors in sentient beings (such as in animals being butchered) produces a signal that travels to the brain that makes it aware of ‘pain’, emanating pain waves that travel through the crust and rupture it. Here, I stress that equating subjective experience of ‘pain’ with an objective reality of ‘waves’ is a work of fiction!
