We have looked at some of the odd portents leading up to the recent Chinese earthquake but footage has emerged which seems to show impressive "rainbow clouds" in the area.
This first video is said to come from near the epicentre 30 minutes before the quake:
This was taken 20 minutes later 200 miles east:
The rainbow colours are interesting as they suggest something is acting as a prism, which, in other atmospheric phenomena, is often due to the presence ice crystals - those clouds certainly appear to be another example of a "fire rainbow" (although it has a more technical name: circumhorizontal arc, but that is less fun). An example hit the news in 2006 and for more, see these pictures:
I am unsure what the link with the earthquake can be (if, indeed, there is one) but perhaps something released in the run-up to the quake could cause a kind of nucleation (possibly connected with ionisation?).
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We looked at earthquake clouds and one of the researchers we mentioned has come up with what looks like the best explanation yet for their creation of earthquake lights. Friedemann Freund of NASA and SETI explained his thinking in the following paper (available here):
St-Laurent, France , Derr, John S. and Freund, Friedemann T. (2006) Earthquake lights and the stress-activation of positive hole charge carriers in rocks. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C. 31 (4-9). 305-312.
They report numerous cases:
There is, however, yet another reason for calling the Saguenay earthquake remarkable: A large number of luminous phenomena, reported from a wide area around the epicenter to the INRS, Universite´ du Que´bec at Sainte-Foy, and to the Universite´ du Que´bec at Chicoutimi (Ouellet, 1990). The earliest report dates from 25 days before the 25 November 1988 main shock when two individuals driving on Route 175 through the Laurentide Park observed at about 18:30 local time three luminous ‘‘masses’’ that rose from the ground. The area was 15 km from the nearest settlement, but close to the future epicenter. More luminous phenomena were reported during the mb = 4.3 (mbLg = 4.8 ) foreshock of 23 November 1988, at the time of the 25 November 1988 main shock and during aftershocks. The phenomena were variously described as globular luminous masses, bands or rays or as intense atmospheric illuminations lasting from several seconds to several minutes. The phenomena were reported from places as far as 205 km from the epicente
They conclude:
If the rate at which the p-holes and electrons are activated exceeds the rate at which they can be dissipated, a situation may arise where the p-holes form a degenerate solid state plasma that can burst out of its confined rock volume and propagate at relatively high speed through the overlying rocks. When this charge cloud intersects the Earth’s surface, it causes ionization of the air and, hence, corona discharges, which are accompanied by the emission of light. The many different forms and shapes of EQLs that have been reported suggest that the conditions of the solid state plasma and its discharge through the Earth’s surface can be highly variable.
Our conclusions seem to be consistent with not only the observed luminous phenomena but also with the reported emission of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation and other effects.
In an email correspondence on a mailing list he gave an impressive description of the kind of phenomena that could be generated:
At some critical p-hole concentration the rocks will then abruptly change from an insulator to a quasi-metal. We speculate that such a solid state plasma will be inherently unstable. It may or even should break out of its confinement. The vertical "clouds" reported before earthquakes may be cases where such a violent (electric/magnetic) outbreak took place, causing massive air ionization and, probably, light emission. Maybe the outbreak is like an electric jet coming out of the ground. Due to the heating during recombination of the ionized air, the air will rise.
So there is certainly potential there for energy discharges from the quake to have had some effect on cloud formations.
It is worth noting that clouds have long been thought to be predictors of earthquakes, and we even have an account from China about an incident in 1635 just before an earthquake:
It was sunny and warm; the sky was blue and clear. Suddenly, there appeared threads of a black cloud spanning the sky like a long snake. The cloud stayed for a long time, so there would be an earthquake
Although I should underline the fact that these clouds are very different to the ones seen in the videos above. At least from what I've seen, they don't appear to be earthquake lights but a fire rainbow. however, its cause might be connected to the earthquake in some way.
Were the Olympic mascots to blame?
Some vague conspiracy mutterings emerged but they seemed rather weak. Now new ones are circulating and, while I can't say they have any more evidence to support them, they are at least a lot weirder:
Superstitious bloggers have linked China's earthquake disaster and other recent misfortunes to the five Olympic mascots, a Hong Kong newspaper reported yesterday.
Gossip sites are full of speculation that four of the five cartoon mascots have fulfilled prophesies of doom with one more, connected to the Yangtze River, still to come, the South China Morning Post said.
The five Olympic mascots are Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, Nini and Beibei. Jingjing, a panda, is the animal most closely associated with Sichuan province where the earthquake struck.
Huanhuan, a cartoon character with flame-red hair, is being linked by bloggers to the Olympic torch that has been dogged by anti-China protests on its round-the-world tour.
Yingying, an antelope, is an animal confined to the borders of Tibet, which has been the scene of riots and the cause of international protests against China, the bloggers say.
Nini, represented by a kite, is being viewed as a reference to the "kite city" of Weifang, in Shandong, where there was a deadly train crash last month.
That leaves only Beibei, represented by a sturgeon fish, which online doomsayers suggest could indicate a looming disaster in the Yangtze River, the only place where sturgeon is found.
A Peking University sociologist, Xie Xueluan, told the newspaper: "Chinese see major calamities as divine intervention … The absence of religion reinforces this trend."
I like the way the nation's secularism (not including all those Buddhist, Taoists, etc.) is to blame - clearly religions haven't ever led to people believing odd things. The common factor seems to be... people.
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Of course, one could also point out that the mascots are each a different colours (matching the 5 colours of the 5 Olypmic rings) - a mini-rainbow of sorts.
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