Electric and electromagnetic processes in the near-Earth atmosphere before earthquakes on Kamchatka

Abstract

Simultaneous records of the diurnal variations in the quasistatic electric field in the near-Earth atmosphere, fluxes of discrete electromagnetic pulses in the VLF band, source azimuths, narrowband filter output emission intensity at frequencies of 4.65 and 5.3 kHz, and time forms and spectra of VLF pulses have been analyzed. The anomalous behavior of these parameters in October 2002 and August 2004 with different time delay was accompanied by earthquakes near the southeastern coast of Kamchatka at distances of 250–400 km from the registration points. Based on the results of a fine frequency-time analysis of the broadband records of VLF signals, it has been indicated for the first time that discrete electromagnetic pulses observed in anomalous fluxes before earthquakes were signals of local thunderstorm processes.