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Toads and earthquakes

Aitch

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Just heard a story on the radio about toads disappearing prior to an earthquake - and returning afterwards. The story is here.

Original study is here.

Probably not a story of earth-shattering importance (pun intended) but it tickled me; and it makes a change from stories about people colliding large hadrons. ;)
 
hmmm, I suppose toads could feel vibrations of an oncoming predator. Easily confused with ground vibrations of an upcoming earthquake?
 
The only recorded case of successful earthquake prediction also involved animals - namely snakes..
was in China

Earthquake Prediction Information
One well-known successful earthquake prediction was for the Haicheng, China earthquake of 1975, when an evacuation warning was issued the day before a M 7.3 ...
Click to expand...

http://www.pnsn.org/INFO_GENERAL/eq_prediction.html

That monster quake in the Mississipi Valley circa 1860 also had stories of animal pre quake reactions as did the Sumatra quake
 
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casebro said:
hmmm, I suppose toads could feel vibrations of an oncoming predator. Easily confused with ground vibrations of an upcoming earthquake?
Click to expand...

According to the study:

It is unclear what environmental stimuli the toads were responding to so far in advance of the EQ, but reduced toad activity coincides with pre-seismic perturbations in the iono-sphere, detected by very low frequency (VLF) radio sounding.
Click to expand...

But that could just be coincidence.
 
macdoc said:
The only recorded case of successful earthquake prediction also involved animals - namely snakes..
was in China



http://www.pnsn.org/INFO_GENERAL/eq_prediction.html

That monster quake in the Mississipi Valley circa 1860 also had stories of animal pre quake reactions as did the Sumatra quake
Click to expand...
Those 'stories' have repeatably not panned out when prospectively looked for. In other words the evidence supports the conclusion they are merely selective memory, not real events.

The predicted China quake turned out to be valid, IIRC, but the premonitory signals are not present with all quakes. HOWEVER, the prediction had nothing to do with snakes. From your link:
An increase in foreshock activity triggered the evacuation warning. Unfortunately, most earthquakes do not have such obvious precursors. In spite of their success in 1975, there was no warning of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, magnitude 7.6, which caused an estimated 250,000 fatalities.
Click to expand...
 
macdoc said:
That monster quake in the Mississipi Valley circa 1860 also had stories of animal pre quake reactions as did the Sumatra quake
Click to expand...

The question, I guess, should be, "How many times have animals had similar reactions since, and no quake occurred?"
 
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