Can earthquake clouds and animal perception predict earthquakes?

In fact, in life, we often hear rumors about earthquake predictions, such as "earthquake clouds" and abnormal behavior of animals...but are these really reliable?

Earthquake Cloud

The earliest record of "earthquake clouds" predicting earthquakes in my country was the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that occurred in Longde County on October 25, 1622. The chronicles recorded that "the sky was clear and warm, and the sky was blue. Suddenly, black clouds appeared like long snakes across the sky, and they did not dissipate for a long time." That is, "earthquake clouds" were regarded as one of the "six signs of earthquakes."

Although the research on "earthquake clouds" seems to have yielded some results, the research of many experts is not the same. Not only are there many different opinions on the causes of "earthquake clouds", but there is no consensus on whether "earthquake clouds" are in the shape of long strips, beans, honeycombs or vortex clouds.

In fact, "earthquake clouds" are also clouds. The difference between them and ordinary clouds is that "earthquake clouds" may be the meteorological response of earthquake tectonic activities. Identifying "earthquake clouds" from various clouds is the premise of using "earthquake clouds" for earthquake prediction. "Earthquake clouds" are not a direct sign of earthquake activity. The presence of clouds does not necessarily mean earthquakes. So far, no definite relationship between "earthquake clouds" and earthquakes has been found , which is also the difficulty of using "earthquake clouds" to predict earthquakes.

Animal Perception

As for the fact that animals can sense earthquakes in advance, it can be said that almost every earthquake survivor's memory contains abnormal behavior of animals. Scientists have also observed birds, fish, chickens, cats, dogs, mice and other animals as earthquake precursors, and studied the causes of abnormal animal behavior before earthquakes. They believe that various changes before an earthquake, such as the release of electromagnetic waves, sound waves, heat, chemicals, and micro-movements of the earth, may cause abnormal behavior of animals before an earthquake, but so far there is no sufficient conclusion to explain the mechanism of such behavior of animals . Moreover, the abnormal behavior of animals is not one-to-one with the earthquakes that occur . There are non-earthquake abnormalities, some are caused by other natural disasters, and even animals will have abnormal phenomena when they enter their reproductive period.

In short, after scientists' unremitting research and exploration, it has not been proven that there is a definite correspondence between earthquake clouds, abnormal animal behavior and earthquakes . Earthquake prediction must be combined with other earthquake observation methods for comprehensive analysis.

Due to various reasons, such as the inaccessibility of the earth's interior, the infrequency of large earthquakes, and the complexity of the seismic physical process, scientists have not yet found a way to accurately predict earthquakes . As a geoscience problem that urgently requires an answer and can only be solved through long-term exploration, earthquake prediction is indeed very difficult, but scientists are still working hard to this day. With the advancement of earthquake observation technology and the development and application of high-tech, I believe that the problem will be conquered one day!