Investigation of the Thermal Anomaly Precursor in the 2017 Azgeleh Earthquake in Kermanshah, Iran

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Master in Remote Sensing,Department of Geography, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

2 Associate Professor in Climatology, Department of Geography, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

Abstract

The warming of the air and the earth before the occurrence of earthquakes is a precursor that has been known since ancient times. Today, the truth of this myth, with the scientific title of thermal anomaly, has been proven in many earthquakes. The present study aims to investigate the occurrence of the anomaly in the long-term period of three years before the 2017 Azgeleh earthquake, using the simple method of deviation from the moving average. The results showed that one or two weeks before the occurrence of the earthquake, a rare or unprecedented daily anomaly occurred in both the meteorological parameters of air temperature, soil temperature, and air humidity at the synoptic station of Tazeh-Abad, as well as in the satellite parameter of the land surface temperature. These thermal anomalies can be related to the occurrence of the earthquake. The spatial investigation of the land surface temperature anomaly that occurred 15 days before the earthquake, revealed that on that day, the land boundary between the Arabian and Eurasian plates in the west of Iran was warm, and a hot area appeared in the center of Iraq with elongation toward the epicenter of the earthquake. Other tests showed that this simple anomaly detection method is also able to identify the thermal anomaly before the 2003 Bam and 2010 Mohammad-Abad Rigan earthquakes, both in Kerman province. The Azgeleh earthquake was a typical earthquake of the active and densely populated Zagros zone. This type of research hopes to better understand the precursors of earthquakes in each zone, with the aim of realizing the dream of earthquake prediction.

Keywords

Main Subjects

©2025 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

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History

  • Receive Date: 15 July 2023
  • Revise Date: 10 August 2023
  • Accept Date: 18 August 2023

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