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Ionospheric response to earthquakes of different magnitudes: Larger quakes perturb the ionosphere stronger and longer
Author(s) -
Astafyeva E.,
Shalimov S.,
Olshanskaya E.,
Logné P.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/grl.50398
Subject(s) - ionosphere , geology , seismology , amplitude , total electron content , global positioning system , geophysics , geodesy , physics , tec , telecommunications , quantum mechanics , computer science
Recently, it has been shown that the ionosphere is capable of showing images of seismic fault shortly after an earthquake. This gives rise to the idea of retrieval of seismic information from ionospheric observations. As the first step toward such inversion, here we study distinctive features of ionospheric response to shallow earthquakes, both submarine and inland, of moment magnitudes Mw 7.2–9.1. Using GPS measurements of the ionospheric total electron content, we show that: (1) the amplitude of coseismic total electron content variations in the near‐field is larger after more powerful earthquakes, and (2) stronger earthquakes ( M > 7.9) are in general characterized by a longer negative phase in coseismic perturbations.