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Abstract—This letter presents the possibility of detecting earth- a sequence of pulses that include microwaves in the selected
quakes (EQs) from microwaves emitted when rock fractures. The frequency bands of 300 MHz, 2 GHz, and 22 GHz. The features
method is based on an experiment in which microwave emission are the same as that of the signals in the case of a hypervelocity
was detected from rock fracturing in a laboratory for the first time
in the world. First, the method of calibrating emitted microwave impact with several materials [5]. This fact suggested another
power from experimental data is presented. A model of microwave means to detect an EQ, one associated with rock fractures or
emission and propagation to a satellite is then proposed. An advan- rock slips.
tage of microwaves is that they penetrate the Earth’s ionosphere, The microwave energy associated with an EQ may be de-
unlike radiowaves of frequencies lower than several tens of mega- tected in several ways. A microwave receiver aboard a satellite
hertz. The power received by a satelliteborne receiver is estimated
by assuming parameters of a radiometer currently operating in in a low-Earth orbit is one candidate and has the following
orbit. The result indicates that a satelliteborne receiver can detect advantages.
microwave signals generated by an EQ. Based on this result, we
attempted to detect some features associated with an actual EQ 1) Microwave energy is not blocked by the Earth’s
from the data of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiome- ionosphere.
ter for Earth Observation System aboard the remote sensing 2) An antenna beam from a satellite can scan the Earth’s
satellite Aqua. surface and obtain global data.
Index Terms—Earthquake (EQ) detection, emitted microwave 3) To investigate a detection method, we can first select a
power, remote sensing satellite, rock-fracture experiment, signal- favorable EQ from the viewpoint of microwave detection
to-noise (S/N ) ratio. and then perform a concentrated data analysis on it.
A satellite system, however, has the disadvantage of a long
I. I NTRODUCTION
propagation distance, resulting in a weak received signal. The
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108 IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2009
The signal in the 2-GHz band is also composed of many pulses, in an EQ (PEQ ) may be extrapolated from the experimental
but lasts for a total measuring time of 4 ms. data of Pexp as
During the calibration, the receiving system is fed a mi-
crowave continuous wave (CW) of known power levels. The V
output voltage of the receiver is then calibrated with the in- PEQ = Pexp × (3)
v
put power level. The amplitude of the measured ith pulse is
replaced with the calibrated CW power level (Pi ) with the spe- where v (V ) is the volume of the rock sample fractured in the
cific period (τi ). The received power (Pr ), which is averaged experiment (area where rocks are crushed due to an EQ). Since
over time (τave ), is expressed by the area where rocks are crushed is assumed to be a sphere
n whose radius is a, V = 4πa3 /3. Microwave energy generated
Pi τi by rock fractures propagates under the ground to the ground
Pr = i=1 (1)
τave surface and then through space to a satellite in orbit. The
propagation loss (LG ) includes ohmic and scattering losses in
where n is the number of pulses in τave . In Fig. 1(a), τi values the ground and the reflection loss at the ground surface, which
are 6–10 ns. τave is taken as 3 ms, so that Pr = 1.1 × 10−3 pW. are all significantly affected by the ground conditions. LG may
Pr is a part of the total emitted power from the crushed be separated from the free-space loss (LF ). By another Friis
sample (Pexp ) and is expressed by the Friis equation as follows: equation, the microwave signal power received by a satellite-
borne receiver (PREQ ) is expressed by
Pr = Pexp Lf Gr . (2)
PREQ = PEQ LG LF GR (4)
Here, Lf is the free-space loss represented by Lf = (λ/4πl)2 ,
where λ is the microwave signal wavelength, l is the distance where GR is the gain of the satelliteborne receiver’s antenna.
from the wave source to the receiving antenna, and Gr is the We will now estimate the detection capability of the proposed
gain of the receiving antenna. In the experiment, l = 0.48 m satellite system. The ground is assumed to be a pure rock of
and Gr = 126; therefore, Pexp is calibrated to be 32 pW quartzite. The electrical characteristics of quartzite are the most
at 2 GHz and 1.6 pW at 22 GHz. In addition to quartzite, rock important factors in the system and are assumed to be those of
samples of gabbro, granite, and basalt were tested, and signals granite [6], [7]. However, the relative permittivity (r ) and loss
were detected at 2 GHz but not detected at 22 GHz. The power tangent (tan δ) differ widely in the literature. Daniels [6] states
level emitted from gabbro was high, almost the same as that that r is 5, and the attenuation constant is from 0.5 to 5 dB/m
from quartzite. This fact indicates that the emitted power level at 100 MHz for granite. Therefore, the electric conductivity (σ)
does not depend on piezoelectricity alone. varies from 10−6 to 10−2 S/m. In contrast, Ulaby et al. [7]
state that r and tan δ at 450 MHz and 35 GHz, respectively.
σ is calculated to be much larger by these r and tan δ values.
III. S ATELLITE S YSTEM FOR EQ D ETECTION
Consequently, it is, at least, clear that σ depends heavily on
It is inferred that rock fractures or slips occur around the water content, composition, and frequency. Here, we assume
same time as an EQ. Therefore, we can conceive a satellite that r = 5 and σ = 10−6 S/m. Satellite parameters such as
system for detecting microwaves associated with an EQ, as altitude above ground, receiver antenna gain, and receiver noise
shown in Fig. 2. The microwave signal emitted by rock fractures figure are taken from those of Aqua and AMSR-E [8].
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TAKANO AND MAEDA: EXPERIMENT AND THEORETICAL STUDY OF EARTHQUAKE DETECTION CAPABILITY 109
TABLE I
ESTIMATION OF THE S/N OF THE EQ-GENERATED MICROWAVE SIGNAL
Table I lists the estimation results. Based on the experiment IV. EQ D ETECTION F ROM AMSR-E’ S D ATA
result at 22 GHz, PEQ is estimated to be 18.7 GHz to fit with
A. Overview
the characteristics of AMSR-E. Therefore, Pexp at 18.7 GHz is
assumed to be the same as Pexp at 22 GHz, and the receiver’s Based on the investigation result described in Section III,
bandwidth is assumed to be 200 MHz (AMSR-E’s bandwidth at we attempted to detect features associated with an actual EQ
18.7 GHz), while that of the receiver used in the experiment is from AMSR-E’s brightness temperature data of vertically and
500 MHz. PEQ , LG , and LF are derived in the Appendix. The horizontally polarized signals at 18.7 GHz (TV and TH ). Since
hypocenter depth is assumed to 10 km. Table I indicates that we Aqua (with AMSR-E aboard) is traveling in a sun-synchronous
can distinguish microwave signals generated by rock fractures subrecurrent orbit, all points on the Earth’s surface are observed
from receiver noise with a signal-to-noise (S/N ) ratio of 8.8 at least twice a day, at local daytime (nighttime) when Aqua is
when rock is crushed in a spherical volume with a = 1000 m. ascending (descending). We used only the data of TV and TH
The microwave signal level received by a satelliteborne obtained on descending tracks in order to evaluate microwave
radiometer (PR ) is obtained by averaging brightness tempera- emissions from the land surface without the influence of reflect-
tures in an instantaneous field of view (IFOV) (Tb ) as follows: ing sunlight.
We focused on an EQ that occurred at 02:27:46 on
PR = kTb B. (5) February 24, 2004 (UT) in Morocco. According to an Inter-
national Seismological Centre On-line Bulletin (http://www.
Here, k is Boltzmann constant, and B is the receiver bandwidth. isc.ac.uk/), the location, depth, and magnitude of the seismic
Let Tb0 and PR0 denote Tb and PR when an EQ is not center were supposed 35.142◦ N, 3.997◦ W, 14.0 km, and
considered. At this time, Tb is almost dominated by the 6.3, respectively, by the Instituto Andaluz de Geofisica (IAG,
average land surface temperature (LST) of the IFOV (Tg ); Spain). Fig. 3 shows the epicenter supposed by IAG and the
therefore, Tb0 Tg . Therefore, the following is obtained terrain feature around it. According to [9], the area in the south
from (5): side of the epicenter is composed of quartzite. As described in
Section II, a microwave emission at 22 GHz was experimentally
PR0 = kTg B. (6) confirmed in connection with quartzite’s fracture. Additionally,
it was confirmed by interferograms formed by the data of
When an EQ is considered, PR is the superposition of PR0 and Advanced SAR aboard the European Space Agency’s satellite
PREQ . If Tb , at this time, is denoted by TbEQ , the following Envisat that the terrain around the epicenter was displaced in
is obtained from (5): association with the EQ [10]. In Section III, we assumed that a
microwave signal associated with rock fractures is emitted from
PR0 + PREQ = kTbEQ B. (7) a seismic center under the ground. However, a deformation of
the terrain on the land surface is likely to be accompanied by
Therefore, taking the ratio of (6) and (7), we obtain rock fractures. Microwave energy generated by rock fractures
near the ground surface is more likely to be detected by
PR0 + PREQ TbEQ AMSR-E.
= . (8)
PR0 Tg
B. Method
For Tg = 290 K and B = 200 MHz, we obtain PR0 =
8.0 × 10−13 W. As PREQ = 3.7 × 10−12 W, we obtain We first extracted the data of TV and TH obtained on
TbEQ = 1630 K, assuming that T0 = 290 K for simplicity. descending tracks from June 1, 2002 (observation start) to
TbEQ is large enough to be recognized in the distribution of December 31, 2007 and clipped out the scene of the area shown
Tb from the background of the LST level from this perspective in Fig. 3 for each observation. Considering the sampling inter-
as well. val of AMSR-E (9 × 10 km) [8], each scene was restructured
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110 IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2009
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TAKANO AND MAEDA: EXPERIMENT AND THEORETICAL STUDY OF EARTHQUAKE DETECTION CAPABILITY 111
detected, even by a seismograph. Of course, this is just our where the exponential part is not −αd but −2αd since LG is
initial finding. the propagation loss of electric power. LF is calculated as
2
λ
V. C ONCLUSION LF = (13)
4π(d + h)
A satellite system to detect microwave signals generated by
where λ is 16.0 mm since the microwave signal associated with
rock fractures in an EQ was proposed. The emitted microwave
rock fractures is considered to be emitted at 18.7 GHz.
signal in the rock-fracture experiment was successfully cali-
brated by comparison with CWs. The microwave signal power
to be received by a satelliteborne receiver was estimated by ACKNOWLEDGMENT
extrapolating the experimental results and based on the param-
The authors would like to thank Dr. K. Maki of the Institute
eters of Aqua and AMSR-E. The investigation result indicates
of Physical and Chemical Research, Dr. E. Soma of the Institute
that an EQ can be detected from brightness temperatures under
of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Explo-
favorable conditions.
ration Agency (JAXA), and Dr. S. Yoshida and Dr. M. Nakatani
Based on this investigation result, we analyzed the brightness
of the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, for
temperature data obtained by AMSR-E with respect to an EQ
performing the rock-fracture experiments, and Mr. K. Imaoka
that occurred on February 24, 2004 in Morocco and attempted
of the Earth Observation Research Center, JAXA, for arranging
to detect features associated with an actual EQ. As a result, we
the AMSR-E data as well.
indicated the possibility that microwave energy was specifically
emitted at 18.7 GHz around the epicenter two days before the
Al Hoceima EQ. However, this analysis result is just the first R EFERENCES
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