Multi-Experiment Observations of Ionospheric Disturbances as Precursory Effects of the Indonesian Ms6.9 Earthquake on August 05, 2018

Abstract

Taking the 2018 Ms6.9 Indonesia earthquake as a case study, the ionospheric perturbations in very low frequency (VLF) transmitters recorded by China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) were mainly investigated, as well as the multi parameters of the plasma and electromagnetic field. The characteristics of electron density (Ne), GPS TEC, ULF electric field, ion drift velocity, and ionosphere height were extracted and compared with the features of the signal-noise ratio (SNR) from VLF transmitters of NWC at the southern hemisphere and JJI at the northern hemisphere. Most disturbances in VLF radio waves occurred along the orbits near the epicenter within 10 days before the earthquake. Along these orbits, we observed simultaneous modulations in the Ne and ULF electric field, as well as the changed ion drifting directions. There was also high spatial correspondence between both SNR and ionospheric height anomalies over the epicentral and its magnetic conjugate regions. Combined with the multi observations, these results suggest that the genesis of perturbations in signals emitted by VLF transmitters on satellite was more likely related to the overlapped electric field in the preparation area of the earthquake.