Goats and dogs are able to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

[UM-Bot]

A new study aims to observe the behaviors of goats, dogs and other animals in an effort to predict natural disasters.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/382900/goats-and-dogs-are-able-to-predict-earthquakes-and-volcanic-eruptions

[Shill]

Bad headline: Goats and dogs are able to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

No they can't.

The original headline Can goats predict earthquakes? Can dogs forecast volcanic eruptions? These scientists think so is also misleading.

The study is far more broad, and they aren't saying they can predict or forecast, they are examining how they respond to events.

Quote

"The aim is not just to study how they react to imminent natural events like volcanic eruptions but to gain new insights into migration, the spread of diseases among animals and the impact of the climate crisis, say researchers."

Volcanic eruptions are preceded by plenty of signs. Of course animals are going to feel the tremors, smell the gases emitted, feel the temperature change of the ground, etc. This is not new. Earthquakes may also have similar precursors, or they may not. Animals are terrible at predicting anything because their behavior and reaction is variable and no earthquake is really the same as the last one.

The study is still pretty cool but exaggerating the aim and using click-bait headlines is not.

[Ell]

Quote

Earthquakes can produce infrasound signals in a variety of ways, but primary earthquake infrasound is key for detecting local, nearby events. Primary earthquake infrasound (sometimes called local infrasound) is the conversion of seismic waves that travel through the ground to infrasonic waves at the sensing array. The infrasound signal arrives at nearly the same time across the array because the seismic waves travel at a much faster speed than infrasound.

Infrasound in Idaho’s mountains come from waterfalls, thunderstorms, and earthquakes

 

Edited December 5, 2024 by Ell

[jethrofloyd]

The snakes are absolutely champions of earthquake dececting. Snakes have a highly developed sense of vibration. They can detect ground movements and vibrations that occur before an earthquake, which may be imperceptible to humans.

[Saru]

3 hours ago, Shill said:

The study is still pretty cool but exaggerating the aim and using click-bait headlines is not.

The title isn't click-bait - one of the goal's of this research is to study how animals behave before a natural disaster and look for patterns and behaviors that could potentially be used to predict that such an event is going to occur ahead of time.

To quote the project's leader:

"We have found the behavior of goats is pretty good at predicting large volcanic eruptions. They know beforehand what is coming. We don’t how they do it, but they do."

[Doc Socks Junior]

I think that these sort of predictions are hit or miss. For example:

Quote

Researchers also found that dogs and farm animals around the Abruzzo mountains near Rome reacted in a way that made it possible to predict earthquakes 7 out of 8 times in the last 12 years.

Well, that's great, but there have been well more than 8 earthquakes in the last 12 years in the Abruzzo mountains. I assume. The real challenge is getting some indicator that is persistent.

I think that their approach is interesting and should provide some more insight into how useful the indicator is.

 

[MissJatti]

My jack russell knows when someone (who is near him) is about to rip one out. He pops his head up, he tilts his head, his ears perks out and stares at the culprit, before making a bee kine out of there

[openozy]

8 hours ago, MissJatti said:

My jack russell knows when someone (who is near him) is about to rip one out. He pops his head up, he tilts his head, his ears perks out and stares at the culprit, before making a bee kine out of there

I love Russells, I have two and I'd definitely say that was ESP 🙂.