Can crust deformation / seismic activity be detected?

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Apart from using a seismometer, can ground alteration be detected from a simple device such as a thermometer to pickup ground temperature differences? Just curious to test ground where some landslides and tremors have been detected recently.
 
Yes, however it is generally high tech methods like infrared thermal imaging. Simple thermometer may distinguish increased moisture content and therefore lower temps but it would need unusually favorable circumstance.
 
Boiling water was once a high tech method. Thanks for some info bazxa, moisture content was already in mind and will be testing that as well. I only need differences to pick up anything out of the ordinary so see how it goes. I'm sure it could get more complicated with air pressures, altitude..time of day. etc but ill try and test similar zones which are similar.
 
Probably need to test the mean air temp in shade X, and then test ground temp in shadeX, both after ( time in shade Y ), and have a set shade size and distance from your thermometer, just so you can check one against the other.
Have you got a meat probe thermometer type thing to poke into the ground, you can get moisture probes like that too. :D
 
There's a local weather station doing the groundwork for me and giving me a zero point to start from with differences. Its been active for 6 years logging, and getting some info through them as well. Yeah things like that silver, I have a moisture and thermometer combo I made ages ago I can use for my basic tests. Two prong probe, but ill also laser test just leaf / ground temp too :) keeping instruments in a box with air holes keeps the shade and other issues away should work
 
If all you need to do is stick a thermometer in the ground then why would anyone study geology. HAHAHAHAHA probably the funniest thing i have ever heard.
 
HAHAHAHAHA,... even funnier when AR is driving a Red Corvette with THERMO stensilled in gold on the bonnet.
Drs still slide in thermometers whilst studying colons and sphincters ,... but I don't think they will just do it for a code brown, there is always rhyme to reason. Just like AR will use a thermometer too, as sometimes a finger just won't cut it when you want proper statistical data. ;) :D
 
Never heard of it but I would think you would need a large sample set to filter out local measurement variations if you could even guarantee each measurement was taken consistently so using a thermometer wouldn't be practical. If it is possible to thermally distinguish ground activity then I would start at using MODIS satellite land data.
Jon
 
G'day Atomrat, I 've been thinking about your original question which was detection of fault movement, and the one thing that does come to mind is that there can be agreement on the fact that generally quartz can be associated with some fault lines. Okay. My suggestion is consider piezoelectronics - i.e. - fault lines are where one part of the country wants to go one way, and it's other half wants to go the other way.

With all that torsion and flex going on why not consider something like an electrometer to measure the discharge from quartz? Possibly the more intense movement along the fault, the the higher the reading.

Whadaya reckon?
 
I love that vid Heatho :cool: musnt have anything to do with temperature hey... ;)

Blisters - cheers for that info. Just never know what I could find out and if its one other thing I can check out for an interest while on my journey I might as well. I'm sure some more technical devices are needed for more accurate readings but I feel something should come up ONLY within this small 5km area of interest, no where else.
 
Not sure mate, I'd say with that much movement there would have to be some decent heat below whether from lava movement or heat generated from tectonic movement or uplifting. I'm just not that sure as I'm no geologist.
 
Interesting theory. So you mean picking up frequencies within the quartz which may be resonating still from a recent movement? I've made things like rochelle salt for my own piezo speakers etc. Like mentioned, its landslip zone on a fault with recent activity and that's as much as I can say about that in detail. I'm keen to give anything a go for a test. Problem is, soo many changes will mix quartz up and cause heaps of differences but its no crazier than a thermomenter :)

I'm not positive if quartz holds charge, but if it contains tourmaline as well ( high chance ) it will have some electrical properties to be examined
 
Quartz crystals will actually release electricity when they are deformed, vice versa they will emit certain frequencies when they have an inducted electric charge applied to them. It's called the piezoelectric effect. Do a search on it, there is plenty of info out there.
 
I know that if I have a piece of quartz or rochelle salt ( another piezo ) connected to my oscilloscope and hit it with a pen, ill see that it causes a small current to be detectable, but I never added power to see what happened. Ill give it a go. I get what you mean, just like the old dick smith piezo headphone / microphone combo etc
 
Mods,
Some serious editing there.
Guys, give up on the piezo effect.
1. The reef quartz would not be mono-crystalline,
2. Quartz crystal resonances following stress impact, quickly dampen (we're talking MicroSecs), and
3. Steady-state stress induced fields (even if the vein quartz were mono-crystalline - which they ain't) also dissipate extremely quickly.
 

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