Earthquake Lights and the Stress Activation of
Positive Hole Charge Carriers in Rocks

France St-Laurent1 and Friedemann T. Freund2,3 *
1 125, 68e Ave, LaSalle, Canada H8P3H1, 514-363-1753; france.st-laurent@sympatico.ca
2 Physics, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192-0106, USA
3 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Geodynamics Branch, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Tel. +1 301-614-6874, fax +1 301-614-6522, ffreund@core2.gsfc.nasa.gov

click here

An earthquake light is an unusual luminous aerial phenomenon, similar in appearance to the aurora borealis, that appears in the sky at or near areas of tectonic stress, seismic activity or volcanic eruptions. They are especially visible at night.

The lights are most evident in the middle of an earthquake, although there are reports of lights that occurred after or even before the earthquake, as in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. They usually have shapes similar to those of the auroras and are white to bluish in hue, but occasionally they have been reported to have a wider color spectrum. The luminosity is typically visible for several seconds, but there have been cases in which they lasted tens of minutes.

There have also been cases in which electromagnetic waves caused by the earthquake interfered with radio transmissions, such as during the Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960.