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Geomagnetic Variations during Strong Earthquakes

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Abstract—We analyze the geomagnetic effect caused by the strong earthquakes using the data from the Geophysical Observatory “Mikhnevo” (MHV) of Institute of Geosphere Dynamics of Russian Academy of Sciences (IDG RAS) and from a number of observatories of the international INTERMAGNET network. It is shown that seismic events are accompanied by characteristic variations in the Earth’s magnetic field. These induced geomagnetic variations contain a clearly pronounced short-period component with a period of ~0.5–0.8 min which is recorded during shallow earthquakes and a long-period component (~5–20 min) observed in the most cases. The maximum amplitudes of the induced geomagnetic variations are ~1.5–5 and ~2–20 nT for the short-period and long-period components, respectively. It is noted that the induced geomagnetic perturbations recorded by the observatories at significantly different distances from the source of the earthquake feature almost simultaneous and morphologically similar behavior.

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Notes

  1. The coordinate axes have the following directions: the x-axis is aligned North–South, the y-axis is aligned East–West, and the z-axis is directed vertically downwards.

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Funding

The studies were carried out under Program 19 of Basic Research “Fundamental problems of geological and geophysical study of lithospheric processes” of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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  1. Institute of Geosphere Dynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119334, Moscow, Russia

    A. A. Spivak & S. A. Riabova

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  1. A. A. Spivak
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Correspondence to A. A. Spivak.

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Translated by M. Nazarenko

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Spivak, A.A., Riabova, S.A. Geomagnetic Variations during Strong Earthquakes. Izv., Phys. Solid Earth 55, 811–820 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1069351319060077

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