QuakeFinder is division of a private company located in Palo Alto, CA. Its purpose is to conduct pioneering research in the area of earthquake forecasting. Conceived in 2000 as an educational outreach project for Bay Area schools by the successful aerospace engineering services company Stellar Solutions, QuakeFinder’s strategic goal evolved into a broader vision—to save lives by developing an operational earthquake warning system. The ultimate aim is to make global forecasts of seismic activity a reality in order to provide individual communities with early warnings for potentially destructive earthquakes.
QuakeFinder's activities include:
- Development of electromagnetic monitoring techniques that detect underground earthquake processes, e.g detecting patterns of electromagnetic signals (magnetic pulses, air ionization, infra red signals, etc.) that have a basis in the physics of rock fracture.
- Deployment and monitoring of networks of Ground Sensors in California and international locations where there are high risks of major earthquakes.
- Collaborations with researchers in the earthquake community to speed the development of these techniques and increase the reliability of the processes.
These activities aim to provide leverage to promising research areas that show unusual electromagnetic signatures are precursors to major earthquakes in different parts of the world. Specific findings include Stanford University showing ultra low frequency (ULF) signal activity two weeks before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and QuakeFinder detecting ULF magnetic pulsations, increases in air conductivity, and patterns of night time infra red (IR) signals prior to the 2007 M5.4 Alum Rock. Cooperation and partnerships with NASA, UC Berkeley, Stanford and international research groups (Taiwan, Japan, Russia, China, France, etc.) allow QuakeFinder to leverage other research to speed the research and development cycle. These efforts are in their infancy, but for the first time, indicate that electromagnetic disturbances may yield a promising path toward earthquake forecasting.
