Recent Advances and Challenges in the Seismo-Electromagnetic Study: A Brief Review

Abstract

Due to their potential application in earthquake forecasting, seismo-electromagnetic phenomena were intensively studied for several decades all over the world. At present, measurements from ground to space have accumulated a large amount of observation data, proving an excellent opportunity for seismo-electromagnetic study. Using a variety of analytical methods to examine past earthquake events, many electromagnetic changes associated with earthquakes have been independently reported, supporting the existence of pre-earthquake anomalies. This study aimed to give a brief review of the seismo-electromagnetic studies preceding earthquakes and to discuss possible ways for the application of seismo-electromagnetic signals at the current stage. In general, seismo-electromagnetic signals can be classified into electric and magnetic changes in the lithosphere and perturbations in the atmosphere. We start with seismo-electromagnetic research in the lithosphere, and then we review the studies in the lower atmosphere and upper atmosphere, including some latest topics that aroused intense scholarly interest. The potential mechanisms of seismo-electromagnetic phenomena are also discussed. It was found that although a number of statistical tests show that electromagnetic anomalies may contain predictive information for major earthquakes, with probability gains of approximately 2–6, it is still difficult to make use of seismo-electromagnetic signals efficiently in practice. To address this, finally, we put forward some preliminary ideas about how to apply the seismo-electromagnetic information in earthquake forecasting.