On earthquake at Northern Italy

Historical and architectural heritage of the region has been seriously damaged (App. 1). More than 6000 people were evacuated from cities affected by the earthquake.

Previous destructive earthquake occurred on at the L`Aquila April 6, 2009. Message on our site of April 13, 2009 (in Russian) has been dedicated to the analysis of this event and its precursors.

Within experimental project it was carried out the analysis of precursors of May 20 earthquake with M6.0 in the region of Italy. According to the algorithm of analysis of earthquake geophysical indicators, on the basis of data of experimental Earth- and space-based monitoring system it were found anomalies in the 7 classes of indicators. Some of them are presented on composite image in App.2. The most significant anomalies in the classes of gravitational, georotational, protonic, ionospheric and telluric indicators were observed in the timeframe of May 13–18. According to the analysis algorithm, in this timeframe there must be observed cloud seismotectonic indicators. They were revealed on the satellite images of cloud cover of May 13, 15 and 18 (App. 3). Structure (A) on the satellite images of May 15, 2012 (02:00-08:00) reflects the dynamics of plate interaction along the area with 1000 km extent. The sharpest reflection of this interaction in cloud cover field is presented on the images of block 4.

According to the messages of our colleagues (S.Pulinets, D.Ouzunov), in the region of Italy ionospheric and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) anomalies were registered on May 17.

Mentioned above anomalies, indicated the unity of lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere couplings in the preparation of earthquakes.

Earthquake was launched as a result of strong geomagnetic disturbance of April 26 three weeks later. This is demonstrated as a seismomagnetic meridian on all composite images.

It’s worth to note that in the same day of May 20 earthquake also hit Honshu region with M6.4. This is 20st event within the project of supporting the forecast of A. Lyubushin. If we recall the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, then on the next day (April 7) earthquake hit Kuril Islands with M6.9. There is certain analogy between events of 2009 and 2012 in Italy.

App. 1 (pdf, 555 Kb)

App. 2 (pdf, 560 Kb)

App. 3 (pdf, 517 Kb)

App. 4 (pdf, 542 Kb)