Expecting your explanation/description on:
Whether we can monitor bacterial concentration in ground water over the time to indicate pre-seismic effects-- as one of the earthquake anomalies? Please drop your opinion in details with some relevant attachments if possible. Can it be considered as a reliable precursors of earthquake?
Thank you for your comments in advance!
With Kind Regards!!
Amrita, you pose an interesting question. The problem I see (as an outsider to microbiology) is how to monitor it. If some bacterial species disappear because of higher concentration of •OH, others are likely to move in and take their place. Some years ago, while I was starting to become interested in earthquakes, I remember having read a paper describing changes in the population of microscopic aquatic animals as a result of regional seismicity. Maybe easier to monitor than bacteria.
I think, there are some challanges while working in uncontrolled system as Dr.Freund mentioned. If we are able to rule out those complication, monitoring aquatic lives with microbes population could be a good pre-seismic anamolies. Really, you raised good question!
Most organisms have enzymes to deal with H2O2 caused by free radicals, within their cells. This is catalase and can breake down large quantities of H2O2 very rapidly. If the H2O2 is external it may be toxic depending on concentration?
Why not just measure the H2O2 or the OH- ions directly?
Thank you very much Prof. Dr. Freund and Dr. Rachel for your nice note!
Regards,
I too agree with Prof. Dr. Freund and Dr. Rachel comments! I do believe that if we can develop a measurement technique for their concentration , it could be a nice earthquake precursors provided that we will be able to rule out the complication mentioned by Dr. Freund.
The problem is how to do it in a non labour intensive way. H2O2 and OH radicals as they are strongly oxidising / reactive are short lived. You would need constant monitoring to see the changes. I think you would need to monitor the water daily and who knows when an earthquake will strike. However, if you take samples of zooplankton and bacteria and fix them, then you have a retrospective record of the changes occurring before the seismic event (assuming the organism distribution changes). Then, once there is a reproducible assay it can be used for EQ prediction maybe but it is still labour
intensive, ideally something which could be automated would be better.
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