GNGTS 2010 SESSIONE 2.

tion model provides the lowest spectral ordinate estimations while the Faccioli et al. (2010), FEA10,
model and the GAF approach seem to agree at least up to 3 s. For longer vibration periods GAF dis-
plays larger values. The comparison of acceleration spectra at Sulmona town shows that the GAF
spectrum agrees surprisingly well with that provided by the Italian code Norme Tecniche 2008
(NT2008).
Finally, propagation of uncertainties from ground motion description into risk assessment, in
terms of building damage estimation, was tackled in a full probabilistic context and its influence
investigated the well documented case of the Sulmona building stock, as shown in Figure 3. Qui va
battuto il testo senza rientro nella prima linea dei capoversi.
References
Akinci, A., 2010. HAZGRIDX: Earthquake Forecasting Model for ML≥5.0 Earthquakes in Italy Based on Spatially Smoothed
Seismicity. Submitted to Ann. Geophys.
Boore, D.M., and Atkinson, G.M., (2008). Ground-motion prediction equations for the average horizontal component of PGA, PGV,
and 5%-damped PSA at spectral periods between 0.01 s and 10.0 s, Earthquake Spectra, 24(1), 99-138.Calvi, G. (1999). A
Displacement-based Approach for Vulnerability Evaluation of Classes of Buildings. Journal of Earthquake Engineering. 3(3),
411–438.
Faccioli, E., Bianchini, A., Villani, M., 2010. New ground motion prediction equations for T>1 s and their influence on seismic
hazard assessment. The university of Tokyo Symposium on long period ground motion and urban Disaster mitigation,
University of Tokyo, Japan, March 17-18, 2010.
Field, E., Jordan, T., Cornell, C.A., (2003), OpenSHA: a developing community modelling environment for seismic hazard analysis,
Seismological Research Letters, 74, 406-419.
Graves, R., Jordan, T., Callaghan, S., Deelman, E., Field, E., Juve, G., Kesselmen, C., Maechling, P Mehta, G., Milner, K., Okaya,
D., Small, P., Vahi, K., (2010). CyberShake: a physics based seismic hazard model for Southern California, Pure Applied
Geophysics, doi: 10.1007/s0002401001616.
Lombardi, A.M., Marzocchi, W., 2010. The Double Branching Model (DBM) applied to forecasting Italian seismicity in CSEP
experiment, Ann. Geophys, in press.
Norme Tecniche per le Costruzioni, (2008). DM 140108, Ministero delle Infrastrutture, Roma, Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 29 del
4.2.2008.

ELF SIGNALS BY CENTRAL ITALY ELECTROMAGNETIC NETWORK IN 2008-2010

C. Fidani
Ist. Naz. Fisica Nucleare, Perugia, Italy

Instrumental studies of earthquake electromagnetic phenomena began in the 1800’s in Italy.

These studies were inspired by several observations reported on in the XVIII century collections of
earthquake phenomena (Fidani, 2005) and the inventions of the first electric and magnetic instru-
ments (Palmieri, 1854). Instrumental studies started at the beginning of the XX century (Fidani,
2006). For the last fifteen years in Italy a VLF electromagnetic monitoring which concerns the sub
ionospheric channel of propagation has been active (Bella, 1987). It has produced interesting results
in connection with seismic activity (Biagi, 2009). Recently, a continuous monitoring of LF, ELF and
SLF electromagnetic signals was started in Central Italy (Fidani, 2009). This was done to verify the
usefulness of this research field so to understand earthquake processes and forecasting. The first sta-
tion commenced operating near the city of Fermo, in the Marche region in 2006; a second station
started operating in Perugia, in the Umbria region in 2008. More recently, from the summer of 2010,
two other electromagnetic stations begin operating near the cities of Modena, in the Emilia Romagna
region in August 2010, and L’Aquila, in the Abruzzo region in September 2010, see Fig. 1.
The Fermo station was initially set up with a low frequency amplifier and with a long wave radio
receiver tuned at 150 kHz. The electrode and the antenna were oriented along a north-south direc-
tion. Recently, it has been uniformed to the others electromagnetic stations by substituting the radio
receiver with another low frequency amplifier, and its electrode was oriented in a perpendicular
direction with respect to the first one and both were respectively oriented along north-south and
east-west directions. These electrodes are long wires, longer than 10 m, which are horizontal and 10

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Fig. 1 – Geographical positions of electromagnetic stations indicated with crosses.

m above the ground. Signals are recorded in wave and spectral image files through a maximal sam-
ple frequency of 2 kHz, so that a maximum signal frequency of 1 kHz can be analysed, while min-
imum frequency is limited by the amplifier band at 4 Hz. Signals are sampled by commercial sound
cards and by using the Spectrum Laboratory free software. The other stations were set up with two
low frequency amplifiers in the same way as the Fermo station. Several signals were recorded
before and after the L’Aquila earthquake, see for example Fig. 2, even if the Fermo and Perugia sta-
tions were at the Dobrovolsky limit radial distance (Dobrovolsky, 1979) for that event, and on the
occasions of other Central Italy seismic swarms from 2008-2010.
Here the search for a physical link between seismic events and electromagnetic signals is being
carried out. As at the opposite end of the electromagnetic spectrum several luminous phenomena
were observed near L’Aquila before and after the main shock of April 6, 2009 (Fidani, 2010a), and
a part of them suggests an electrical origin of the lights, the first hypothesis was that there was a
presence of electric free charge in the air. The evaluation of variation density of charge was per-
formed by a comparison with Schumann resonance amplitudes and resulted being 105-106
ions/cm3/s (Fidani, 2010b). This should be able to produce the observed signals in the electrodes.
So, the observation of this ion density variation by other instruments, for example free charge meas-
urements, should be a valid test to verify or to discard this hypothesis. The origin of such a high ion
density rate was also evaluated. The air ionisation produced from Radon emission was first consid-
ered, but the ion density rate produced by radioactive decay process had already been measured dur-

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GNGTS 2010 SESSIONE 2.1

Fig. 2 – The morning of April 2, 2009, from 07:33 – 07:53LT electrode N-S spectrogram captured, at the San
Procolo (Fermo) station.

ing other earthquakes and the results were some orders lower, about 102-103 ions/cm3/s (Gringel,
1986). Being so, this origin hypothesis could be for the moment discarded. A further possibility was
taken into account by considering the positive hole emission by stress-activated electronic charge
carriers (Freund, 2009). Positive holes derive from pre-existing defects in the matrix of minerals in
igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks, specifically peroxy defects, O3X–OO–YO3. Experi-
mental results obtained by impact rocks, see Fig. 3 (Freund, 2007), produced the positive ion den-
sity rate on the sample surface (Freund, 2009), which is in principle sufficient to produce our sig-
nals. Luckly, an observation was recently added very near the Fermo station. Pre-seismic anticipa-
tory behaviour in the common toad (Grant, 2010) was observed at the San Ruffino Lake about 18
km from San Procolo (Fermo) station. The number of male toads active around the breeding site
declined by 96% 5 days before the earthquake. According to Grant: “This is highly unusual behav-

Fig. 3 – Experimental set-up with a slab of granite, one end in a press, Cu contacts attached to front and the back
(left); electric circuit with ammeters to measure currents, one between each Cu contact and ground, capacitive
sensor to measure the surface charge (upper right); circuit showing the flow of electrons through the outer circuit
and the flow of holes through the stressed/unstressed boundary acting as a diode and through the rock (lower right),
(Freund, 2007).

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GNGTS 2010 SESSIONE 2.1

Fig. 4 – San Procolo (Fermo) station (cross) with respect to Santa Vittoria in Matenano and San Ruffino Lake, about
80 km from L’Aquila. Map retrieved from Google Maps website http://maps.google.pt/.

iour for toads; once toads have appeared to breed, they usually remain active in large numbers at
the breeding site until spawning has finished.” Even from a near primary school in Santa Vittoria in
Matenano, near the San Ruffino Lake and about 10 km from the San Procolo (Fermo) station,
Fig. 4, earthworms fled from a box for a student experiment were observed on the morning of April
6. This had never been observed before by the teacher.
Presence of positive charges can cause the well known “serotonin irritation syndrome” which
causes anxiety in animals and people (Tributsch, 1978). So, this gives a further support to the pos-
itive hole emission hypothesis and, together with the network measurements, weakens the VLF
electromagnetic noise hypothesis held by others (Grant, 2010).
Acknowledgements. The author would like to thank F.T. Freund for the permission to publish the photo in Fig.
3. Furthermore, our thanks to G. Martinelli, A. Picchioni and P. Salvatori for their help in setting up the new
instruments.
References
Biagi F., Castellana L., Maggipinto T., Loiacono D., Schiavulli L., Ligonzo T., Fiore M., Suciu E., Ermini A.; 2009: A pre seismic
radio anomaly revealed in the area where the Abruzzo earthquake (M=6.3) occurred on 6 April 2009, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst.
Sci., 9, pp. 1551-1556.
Bella F., Della Monica G., Ermini A., Sgrigna V., Biagi P.F., Manjgaladze P. and Zilpimiani D.; 1987: Underground monitoring
system of electromagnetic emissions, Il Nuovo Cimento, 10C, n.2, pp. 495-504;
Palmieri L.; 1854: Sulle scoperte vesuviane attenenti alla elettricità atmosferica: disquisizioni accademiche, Stab. tip. de G. Nobile,
Napoli, 30 pp.
Dobrovolsky I.P., Zubkov, S.I. and Miachkin, V.I.; 1979: Estimation of the size of earthquake preparation zones, Pure and Applied
Geophysics, 117, pp. 1025-1044.
Fidani C.; 2005: Ipotesi sulle anomalie elettromagnetiche associate ai terremoti. In: Libreria Universitaria Benedetti ed., Aquila,
300 pp.
Fidani C.; 2006: On Electromagnetic Precursors of Earth-quakes: Models and Instruments, IPHW proc., Bologna, June 17, pp. 25-
41.
Fidani C.; 2009: Electromagnetic signals recorded by Perugia and S. Procolo (Fermo) stations before the L’Aquila earthquakes, 28
GNGTS,sez. 2.2, Trieste, pp. 370-373.
Fidani C.; 2010a: The earthquake lights (EQL) of the 6 April 2009 Aquila earthquake, in Central Italy, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst.
Sci., 10, pp. 967-978.
Fidani C.; 2010b: Segnali ELF e EQL associati al sisma del 6 aprile 2009, Osservazioni elettromagnetiche e gravimetriche relative
al sisma del 6 aprile 2009 a L’Aquila, 26-28 aprile 2010, L’Aquila.

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Freund F.T.; 2007: Pre-earthquake signals – Part I: Deviatoric stresses turn rocks into a source of electric currents, Nat. Hazards
Earth Syst. Sci., 7, pp. 1-7.
Freund F.T., Kulahci I.G., Cyr G., Ling J., Winnick M., Tregloan-Reed J. And Freund M.M.; 2009: Air
ionizationatrocksurfacesandpre-earthquakesignals, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 71, pp.1824-1834.
Gringel, W. et al.; 1986: Electrical structure from 0 to 30 kilometers. In: The Earth’s Electrical Environment. National Academic
Press, Washington, DC, pp. 166-182.
Tributsch H.; 1978: Do Aerosol Anomalies Precede Earthquakes?, Nature, 276, pp. 606-608.

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN NOAA SATELLITE PARTICLE BURSTS

AND STRONG EARTHQUAKES
C. Fidani 1, R. Battiston 1,2, W.J. Burger 1
1 Ist. Naz. Fisica Nucleare, Perugia, Italy
2 Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Perugia, Italy

The data provided by particle and plasma physics satellites represent a potentially important
source of information for the study of seismic activity on a planetary scale. Moreover, the increas-
ing number of observations concerning meteorological and telecommunication satellites indicates
that particle precipitation (Fidani, 2008), IR emission (Quiang, 1997) temperature and density vari-
ations of the ions and electrons of the ionospheric plasma (Sarkar, 2007), and electric and magnet-
ic field fluctuations (Bhattacharya, 2009) may be associated, although not yet in a systematic man-
ner, with earthquakes. Several studies have attempted to correlate satellite observations with seis-
mic phenomena, however few have presented statistically significant results. The Polar Orbital
Environmental Satellites (POES) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) (Davis, 2007) contain particle detectors which monitor fluxes of energetic ions and elec-
trons entering the atmosphere, as well as the particle radiation environment at the altitude of the
satellites. The instruments are called Medium Energy Proton and Electron Detector (MEPED), High
Energy Proton and Alpha Detector (HEPAD) and Total Energy Detector (TED), see Fig. 1. Two

Fig. 1 – Particle detector positions

on board of NOAA satellites.

179