Scientists find records of rare 'earthquake lights'

[jakeXT]

They've been mistaken for UFOs or dismissed as hallucinations. But geologists have collected a near-definitive list of the rare but fascinating phenomena known as earthquake lights.

Certain types of earthquakes in certain areas can set off blazes of light seconds — sometimes days — before the actual quake. These can manifest as floating balls of light, bluish columns shooting up out of the earth and even reverse lightning, reaching up into the sky from the ground.

A study out Thursday in the journal Seismological Research Letters shows such quakes are tied to a specific type of temblor in areas where certain geological formations occur.

Though the lights are rare, researchers were able to document 65 examples from 1600 to the present.


...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/02/earthquake-lights-rare-phenomenon/4255097/

[Warpy]

1. The video of those lights before the big Chengdu quake

some years ago was excellent. There is no way to dismiss them as hallucination, aliens, or anything else. They were what they were and they were quite beautiful.

I don't think anyone who saw them expected them to foretell an earthquake. They don't seem to happen frequently enough for that.

ETA:

[jakeXT]

2. Just like the Chelyabinsk meteorite, the availability of cameras caught a lot of interesting

events.

[intaglio]

3. Sorry, those are high ice clouds

and a low sun

[Orrex]

4. So you're saying it was aliens?

ALIENS!

[dimbear]

5. The kind I've heard of is more like arcing, the 'reverse lightning' that's mentioned.

It's conceivably a piezoelectric phenomenon in certain kinds of crust rocks, likely quartz or that sort of thing.

[catbyte]

6. I think I remember reading reports of vivid earthquake lights occuring before the

devastating Tangshan quake back in 1976.