An earthquake light is an unusual luminous aerial phenomenon that reportedly appears in the sky at or near areas of tectonic stress,seismic activity, or volcanic eruptions. Once commonly challenged, it was not until photographs were taken during the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in Nagano, Japan, from 1965 through 1967, that the seismology community acknowledged their occurrence.[1]
Appearance
The lights are reported to appear while an earthquake is occurring, although there are reports of lights before or after earthquakes, such as reports concerning the 1975 Kalapana earthquake.[2] They are reported to have shapes similar to those of the auroras, with a white to bluish hue, but occasionally they have been reported having a wider color spectrum.[1] The luminosity is reported to be visible for several seconds, but has also been reported to last for tens of minutes. Accounts of viewable distance from the epicenter varies, in the 1930 Idu earthquake, lights were reported up to 70 miles from the epicenter.[3]Earthquake lights were reportedly spotted in Tianshui, Gansu, approximately 400 km north-northeast of the earthquakes epicenter.[4] The phenomenon was also widely observed and caught on film during the 2007 Peru, 2008 Sichuan, 2009 L’Aquila[5], 2010 Chile earthquakes[6], and on the 7th April 2011 filmed in Tokyo during the 7.1 magnitude earthquake on the East coast of Honshu, Japan. The phenomenon was also reported around the Aimuri Earthquake in New Zealand, that occurred 1 September 1888. The lights were visible in the morning of 1 September in Reefton, and again on the 8th of September.[7] A more recent citing, as of April of 2011, occurred when a 7.0 earthquake struck Tokyo, Japan close to midnight on April 7th, 2011. The phenomenon can be clearly observed in news footage reporting the quake taken by the Japanese network, NHK. [8]
Theories
Earthquake lights are caused by an unknown mechanism. There are numerous theories as to how and why they occur.
One explanation involves intense electric fields created piezoelectrically by tectonic movements of rocks containing quartz.[9]
Another possible explanation is local disruption of the Earth’s magnetic field and/or ionosphere in the region of tectonic stress, resulting in the observed glow effects either from ionospheric radiative recombination at lower altitudes and greater atmospheric pressure or as aurora. However, the effect is clearly not pronounced or notably observed at all earthquake events and is yet to be directly experimentally verified.[10]
There is also debate in the scientific community regarding radon as a possible precursor to some earthquakes,[11] so another theory is that glowing clouds might be light emission produced by ionization or plasma-chemical reactions[12]
UPDATE 10.50 CST – Video taken in Tokyo of a blinding blue light witnessed on the horizon at the time of the quake is causing a stir. Sky News reports that the light could be a phenomenon thought to occur due to intense electromagnetic activity with the movement of tectonic plates.
UPDATE 10.22 CST – No damage, casualties in Miyagi Pref. as of 11:55 Thurs.: police
UPDATE 10.20 CST – The quake has been revised down to a mag 7.1.
UPDATE 10.19 CST – Japanes Weather agency sees Miyagi quake as aftershock of March 11 temblor.
Japan was rattled by a strong aftershock Thursday night nearly a month after a devastating earthquake and tsunami flattened the northeastern coast.
The Japan meteorological agency initially issued a tsunami warning for a wave of up to one metre, but that was later lifted.
The warning was issued for a coastal area already torn apart by last month’s tsunami, which is believed to have killed some 25,000 people and has sparked an ongoing crisis at a nuclear power plant.
Announcers on Japan’s public broadcaster NHK told coastal residents to run to higher ground and away from the shore. Residents along the northeast coast were being evacuated.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday’s quake was a 7.1-magnitude and hit 40 kilometres under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The quake that preceded last month’s tsunami was a 9.0-magnitude.
Nor people are sure about dumping nuclear waste into the sea.
TOKYO – Workers discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan’s crippled nuclear complex, officials said Monday, as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tons of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control.
Officials believe the contaminated water has sent radioactivity levels soaring at the coastal complex, and caused more radiation to seep into soil and seawater.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, was crippled March 11 when a tsunami spawned by a powerful earthquake slammed into Japan’s northeastern coast. The huge wave engulfed much of the complex, and destroyed the crucial power systems needed to cool the complex’s nuclear fuel rods.
Since then, three of the complex’s six units are believed to have partially melted down, and emergency crews have struggled with everything from malfunctioning pumps to dangerous spikes in radiation that have forced temporary evacuations.
Confusion at the plant has intensified fears that the nuclear crisis will last weeks, months or years amid alarms over radiation making its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far away as Tokyo.
The troubles at the Fukushima complex have eclipsed Pennsylvania‘s 1979 crisis at Three Mile Island, when a partial meltdown raised fears of widespread radiation release, but is still well short of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates, and spewed radiation for hundreds of miles (kilometers).
Photo Used With Permission of Joseph Gonyeau. Original Source: Virtual Nuclear Tourist
The spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor are the most radioactive of all nuclear wastes. When all the radiation given off by nuclear waste is tallied, the fuel rods give off 99% of it, in spite of having relatively small volume. There is, as of now, no permanent storage site of spent fuel rods. Temporary storage is being used while a permanent site is searched for and prepared.
When the spent fuel rods are removed from the reactor core, they are extremely hot and must be cooled down. Most nuclear power plants have a temporary storage pool next to the reactor. The spent rods are placed in the pool, where they can cool down. The pool is not filled with ordinary water but with boric acid, which helps to absorb some of the radiation given off by the radioactive nuclei inside the spent rods. The spent fuel rods are supposed to stay in the pool for only about 6 months, but, because there is no permanent storage site, they often stay there for years. Many power plants have had to enlarge their pools to make room for more rods. As pools fill, there are major problems. If the rods are placed too close together, the remaining nuclear fuel could go critical, starting a nuclear chain reaction. Thus, the rods must be monitored and it is very important that the pools do not become too crowded. Also, as an additional safety measure, neutron-absorbing materials similar to those used in control rods are placed amongst the fuel rods. Permanent disposal of the spent fuel is becoming more important as the pools become more and more crowded.
Another method of temporary storage is now used because of the overcrowding of pools. This is called dry storage (as opposed to “wet” storage which we outlined above). Basically, this entails taking the waste and putting it in reinforced casks or entombing it in concrete bunkers. This is after the waste has already spent about 5 years cooling in a pool. The casks are also usually located close to the reactor site.
Permanent Fuel Storage/Disposal:
There are many ideas about what to do with nuclear waste. The low-level (not extremely radioactive) waste can often be buried near the surface of the earth. It is not very dangerous and usually will have lost most of its radioactivity in a couple hundred years. The high-level waste, comprised mostly of spent fuel rods, is harder to get rid of. There are still plans for its disposal, however. Some of these include burying the waste under the ocean floor, storing it underground, and shooting it into space. The most promising option so far is burying the waste in the ground. This is called “deep geological disposal”. Because a spent fuel rod contains material that takes thousands of years to become stable (and non-radioactive), it must be contained for a very long time. If it is not contained, it could come in contact with human population centers and wildlife, posing a great danger to them. Therefore, the waste must be sealed up tightly. Also, if the waste is being stored underground, it must be stored in an area where there is little groundwater flowing through. If ground water does flow through a waste storage site, it could erode the containment canisters and carry waste away into the environment. Additionally, a disposal site must be found with little geological activity. We don’t want to put a waste disposal site on top of a fault line, where 1000 years in the future an earthquake will occur, releasing the buried waste into the environment.
The waste will probably be encapsulated in large casks designed to withstand corrosion, impacts, radiation, and temperature extremes. Special casks will also have to be used to transfer fuel rods from their holding pools and dry storage areas next to the reactor to the permanent geological storage site.
Highly radioactive iodine seeping from Japan’s damaged nuclear complex may be making its way into seawater farther north of the plant than previously thought, officials say, adding to radiation concerns as the crisis stretches into a third week.
Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and no place to store dangerously contaminated water, have stymied emergency workers struggling to cool down the overheating plant and avert a disaster with global implications.
The coastal Fukushima Daiichi power plant, 220 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since a magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that engulfed the complex. The wave knocked out power to the system that cools the dangerously hot nuclear fuel rods.
On Monday, workers resumed the laborious yet urgent task of pumping out the hundreds of tons of radioactive water inside several buildings at the six-unit plant. The water must be removed and safely stored before work can continue to power up the plant’s cooling system, nuclear safety officials said. That process alone could take weeks, experts say.
Already-grave conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant worsened Sunday with the highest radiation readings yet, compounding both the risks and challenges for workers trying to repair the facility’s cooling system.
Leaked water sampled from one unit Sunday was 100,000 times more radioactive than normal background levels — though the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, first calculated an even higher, erroneous, figure that it didn’t correct for several hours.
Tepco apologized Sunday night when it realized the mistake; it had initially reported radiation levels in the leaked water from the unit 2 reactor as being 10 million times higher than normal, which prompted an evacuation of the building.
After the levels were correctly measured, airborne radioactivity in the unit 2 turbine building still remained so high — 1,000 millisieverts per hour — that a worker there would reach his yearly occupational exposure limit in 15 minutes. A dose of 4,000 to 5,000 millisieverts absorbed fairly rapidly will eventually kill about half of those exposed.
Tests also found increased levels of radioactive cesium, a substance with a longer half-life, the Japanese safety agency said.
“Because these substances originate from nuclear fission, there is a high possibility they originate from the reactor,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the agency’s deputy director-general, at a news conference. He said that it was likely that radiation was leaking from the pipes or the suppression chamber, and not directly from the pressure vessel, because water levels and pressure in the vessel were relatively stable.
In an earlier post on Nuclear Radiation in Japan, I wondered whether we know how to treat Radioactive water.
I have found some information.
Certain rock types naturally contain radioactive elements referred to as NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials). When a source of drinking water comes in contact with NORM-bearing rocks, radionuclides may accumulate in the water to levels of concern. The predominant radionuclides found in water include:
As water is treated to remove impurities, radionuclides may collect and eventually build up in filters, tanks, and pipes at treatment plants. The small amounts of NORM present in the source water may concentrate in sediment or sludges. Because the NORM is concentrated due to human activity, it is classified as TENORM (Technologically Enhanced Radioactive Material). Most of this waste is disposed in landfills and lagoons, or is applied to agricultural fields.
Most drinking water treatment sludges are thought to contain radium (Ra-226) levels comparable to typical concentrations in soils. However, some water supply systems, primarily those relying on groundwater sources, may generate sludge with much higher Ra-226 levels. Furthermore, some water treatment systems are more effective than others in removing naturally-occurring radionuclides from the water.
The table below lists the current radionuclide standards for drinking water.
a) Radioactive contamination of drinking water in Japan at this point in time can come about in only two ways:
1) The source is actual surface water like lakes or rivers, possibly filtratedthrough river banks and thus came into contact with e.g. radioactive rain and/or dust. The Netherlands rely almost totally on water drawn from the Rhine and fed into the drinking water supply after conditioning.
2) The water may have been contaminated after production (e.g. in open cisterns/basins), which in effect is similar to bullet a1).
In all other cases it springs from groundwater (wells) and has often been concealed for years before being extracted again. As limnologists would say “groundwater” has an elephant’s memory, i.e. if you drop a can of used oil in a forest it may take ten years until you become aware of oil traces in your drinking water. This means that on one hand ground water wells should as a rule not yet show contamination from rain fall so shortly after a nuclear accident and on the other hand that when it appears further “down the road” all short-lived contamination should have decayed. This is by no means meant to downplay the issue.
So far I would have thought it unlikely to already find radioactive contamination in water that does not come from surface water or bank filtrate. If it should be true it would be alarming.
Now though, let’s assume it were true as authorities would rather hush up things than exaggerate them, thus let’s take some degree of water contamination for granted.
b) How can you reprocess radioactively contaminated (drinking) water so that it is (relatively) safe to use?
1) It is in the form of radioactive hydrogen (called tritium, three times as heavy as normal hydrogen and emitting very weak beta rays, i.e. electrons, which, however, can damage yourgenome and cause cancer etc. when swallowed). When tritium has been released to the environment it will be incorporated in “heavy” water molecules. However, these are chemically indistinct from normal water, hence you cannot chemically separate radioactive water from normal water. You will have to live with tritium in your water and air (vapour) until it has decayed. With a half-life of approx. 12 years it will be down to one thousandth in about 120 years … All you can do (in theory) is move to another location where the tritium from “your” power plant has not yet reached (eventually the tritium will be evenly dispersed world-wide by wind and wave, however, then also the dosage of radiation will diminish reciprocally with its dilution). Or you “import” clean water (and add a pressurised air cylinder from a clean pristine source for good measure).
And don’t forget: once you’ve moved to another place there might be yet another malfunctioning nuclear power station around the corner – from the frypan into the fire … Help close down all nuclear power stations and so-called reprocessing plants!
2) The water could contain gases, esp. radioactive noble gases (like neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe), radon (Rn)) Rather unlikely but for the sake of completeness we will mention them here. These can be driven out from the water by heating it to boiling temperature as hot liquids dissolve less gases than cold ones (with solid solubles, e.g. salts, it is vice versa with the rare exception of kitchen salt –sodium chloride- which hardly changes in solubility from almost zero to 100 degrees centigrade).
3) The main contaminants by far should be soluble solids, e.g. metal salts of e.g. radioactive caesium, rubidium etc.These can not be filtered e.g. by charcoal or any ceramic or paper filter with whatever fine pore structure since they are dissolved! You can only either try to demineralise that water (e.g. by reverse osmosis) or purify it by distillation thus leaving the radioactive solids behind (the condensed water in the lids of your pots consists of such distilled water droplets). A third potential method would be chemical precipitation. However, in order to know which chemical to use to precipitate the contaminant(s) with, you’d first have to analyse the water components. And in all probability the traces would be too small for normal analysis and if the salt etc. was determined then you might find there is noprecipitant to go with it or it may have adverse side effects, e.g. be poisonous. So de-mineralisation or distillation it is.
While activated charcoal does by virtue of adsorption delay the passage even of solved saltsall these filtration methods are only really designed for capturing suspended matter. But what has been bank filtrated or springs from ground water wells is not a suspension, or at least no water utility would dare inject murky water into its system!!!
Can you still use contaminated water for the following purposes (keep in mind, it is always a matter of how contaminated it all is!):
> – cleaning a garden path for example,
Yes, but may I suggest: only if the path would be less contaminated than before. But before you breathe contaminated dust from a contaminated path by all means use contaminated water to keep it in place! This is what is already done at Fukushima – they spray water not only for cooling purposes but also to keep the contaminated dust or radioactice debris wet and in place!
> – personal hygiene,
Rather not! You would also absorb some contaminants through your skin, however small. However, if you need to decontaminate yourself from a greater dose than what is in your water, do wash it all down and reduce your exposure! Again – “contaminated” water may be heavily or only negligibly contaminated – use your best judgment! We are talking dangerously contaminated here! The situation in your region may not yet be so dire – so please compare to normal radiation levels from the past – traces of radioactivity may not always be dangerous, but are likely to rise with ongoing leaks and further rainfall adding to ground water supplies from contaminated sources above ground:
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