Radio Science Bulletin 313 - June 2005 - URSI

ConferencesCONFERENCE REPORTIWSE 2005INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON SEISMO ELECTROMAGNETICSChofu, Tokyo, Japan, 15 - 17 March 2005This IWSE was organized by The University ofElectro-Communications (UEC) and its Research Stationon Seismo Electromagnetics, also sponsored by URSI(International Union of Radio Science) Commission E, theSociety of Atmospheric Electricity of Japan, and Instituteof Electrical Engineers of Japan, and financially supportedby several foundations.The workshop was intended to provide a scientificforum on the rapidly-growing challenging science on seismoelectromagnetics (electromagnetic phenomena associatedwith earthquakes and lithosphere-atmosphere-ionospherecoupling), and attracted about 200 participants from about30 countries (including 80 foreign participants).The workshop was started with two welcomingaddresses ; the first one was given by Prof. A. P. Mitra(Honorary President of URSI, India), who showed a lot ofinterests in this new science field and showed a strong desirethat India would participate in this study. The next one wasgiven by Prof. T. Masuda, President of UEC, who expressedhis interest on the hopeful future of seismo electromagneticsas the possible earthquake prediction.44 oral papers (11 key papers and 33 contributedpapers) and also 110 poster papers were presented (as thetotal of 143 papers). The key sessions are concerned with(1)seismo-lithospheric effect, (2)signal processing ofseismogenic phenomena, (3)seismo-atmospheric and -ionospheric phenomena and lithosphere-atmosphereionospherecoupling, and (4)spaceborne observations ofseismogenic phenomena.In these reviews the authors have presented somebrief review on each topic and then they have presentedtheir own latest results. The physical cause of pre-seismicelectromagnetic emissions has been discussed in term ofelectronic charge carries (known as positive holes) in typicalcrustal rocks, and this concept has been applied to the Chichiearthquake in Taiwan. The ULF activity jointly done byRIKEN and NASDA frontier groups has been reviewed,with an emphasis on the use of sophisticated signal processingfor seismogenic ULF emissions. Also, new observations onULF emissions have been presented on the basis of dataobserved at Kamchatka.The importance of sophisticated signal processinghas been suggested in order to find out any seismogenicemissions. Then, seismo-atmospheric perturbations havebeen studied with the use of over-horizon VHF signal, andalso the corresponing seismo-ionospheric perturbationshave been observed by different methods (satelliteobservations, subionospheric VLF/LF propagation, TEC(Total electron contents) etc.) .A few possible mechanisms of ionosphericperturbations have been suggested ; (1) Effect of DCelectric field and (2) atmospheric gravity waves. In the 4thkey session, we were extremely excited with looking at thefirst observational results from the two satellite projects(French DEMETER and American QuakeSat), in whichvery promising observational results have been presentedin possible future collaboration with the ground-basedobservation for the study of lithosphere-atmosphereionospherecoupling mechanism.Also, there have been presented interesting results onremote sensing from satellites of Earth’s surface by passiveand active soundings. Surface temperature is found toincrease by a few degrees near the active fault of the futureearthquake about one week before the earthquake.A lot of new observational and theoretical works havebeen presented in the oral and poster sessions, especially onthe DC seismic electric signals, ULF emissions, ELF/VLFemissions and electromagnetic emissions in higher frequencyeven up to microwave. Again, sophisticated signalprocessing including natural time-domain method, fractal(mono- and multi-fractal) analysis etc, have been proposedand applied to the analysis for DC and ULF electromagneticfield changes. Japanese contribution was very noticeable inthe subject of over-horizon VHF signal reception associatedwith earthquakes. A new discovery has been presented onthe anomalous behavior of Schumann resonances observedin Japan, in possible association with the Chi-chi erarthquakein Taiwan, and it attracted a lot of attention from theparticipants.Seismo-atmospheric and –ionospheric perturbationshave been extensively studied. Ionospheric perturbationshave been studied by means of different methods including76TheRadio Science Bulletin No 313 (June, 2005)