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Well connected

  • 14/07/2004

Well connected geologists have found that there are sudden and pronounced changes in the water level of wells in the Thar Desert before an earthquake. The observation raises the possibility of using wells to predict the seismic activity.

The geologists, D Muralidharan, Rolland Andrade and U Satyanarayana of the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute, studied a 165-metre-deep well located in the Churu district of Rajasthan. During a four-month period (December 2001 to March 2002), changes in the water level were observed on 24 occasions shortly (about 24 hours) before the India Meteorological Department recorded the tremors.

The water level changed by 0.05-0.15 metres before earthquake events that had epicentres between 100-800 kilometres away from the well. Whether the water level rose or fell depended on the character of the earthquake

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