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Solar Flares can create earthquakes, facts and history

Updated on June 20, 2011

As I was writing the hub about whether or not we can predict earthquakes I found that there is a lot of very interesting information regarding Solar Flares. I then decided that Solar Flares need to have their own special hub so this is why I am writing this.

According to scientists at (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. "The next solar activity cycle will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the previous one, and up to a year late in arriving. ... One needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the sun was, on average, as active as it is at present!" - They were speaking about the solar activity we are starting to experience at this time.

NASA admitted on their website "spacequakes can cause Northern lights and magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake". To find out more on Earthquakes please click here

March 19th 2011, Prominence Eroption up close
March 19th 2011, Prominence Eroption up close | Source

The different strength Solar Flares explained

Scientists classify solar flares according to their brightness in the x-ray wavelengths. There are three categories of solar flares -

C-class flares - These are small solar flares with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.

 M-class flares - These are medium-sized solar flares. They can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions. Minor radiation storms can sometimes follow an M-class flare.

X-class flares - these are the biggest and are classified as major events that can trigger radio blackouts around the whole world and long-lasting radiation storms in the upper atmosphere.

Solar Flares in History

The earliest surviving record of sunspot observation dates from …

364 BC based on comments by the Chinese astronomer Gan De. From the State of Qi reportedly discovers the moon Ganymede, belonging to Jupiter, and makes the earliest known sunspot observations.

By 28 BC, Chinese astronomers were regularly recording sunspot observations in official imperial records

The first clear mention of a sunspot in Western literature was ...

17 March 807 AD by the Benedictine monk Adelmus, who observed a large sunspot which was visible for eight days; however, Adelmus incorrectly concluded he was observing a transit of Mercury

813 AD. A large sunspot was also seen at the time of Charlemagne's death in

1129 Sunspot activity was described by John of Worcester,

12th century Averroes provided a description of sunspots;however, sadly these observations were misinterpreted as planetary transits, until Galileo gave the correct explanation in 1612.

Nostradamus, Solar Flares and Earthquakes

So basically it sounds like a solar flare created either an Auroras or bolide explosions in areas that don’t normally get southern lights. And there will be an earthquake 3 days after the start of this occurrence.

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August 1st 2010. Solar flare

August 3rd 2010. A 6.4 earthquake hit Papa New Guinea.

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February. 15th 2011. We had a Class X solar flare. The flare hit the earth on February 18th 2011.

On February 22nd 2011 the deadly 6.3-magnitude Christchurch earthquake struck

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On March 9th 2011, a class X1.5 solar flare erupted;

A Coronal Mass Ejection struck our magnetic field March 10th. Bright Aurora Borealis were visible in the northern United States. This was a result of an M3 flare that occurred late on March 7th, 2011

On Friday, March 11th, 2011 On Friday, an 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan, creating a tsunami.

Solar Flare facts

The sun goes through a roughly 11-year cycle of activity, from stormy to quiet and back again.

Solar storms are like a rubber band that has been twisted too far, solar magnetic fields can suddenly snap to a new shape, releasing tremendous energy as a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection (CME).

Solar flares are explosions in the sun’s atmosphere. The largest of these can be equal to billions of one-megaton nuclear bombs.

Solar magnetic energy can also blast billions of tons of plasma into space at millions of miles (kilometers) per hour as a CME. This solar activity often occurs near sunspots. (dark regions on the sun caused by concentrated magnetic fields).

large amounts of energy are released, accelerating the surrounding particles to almost the speed of light.

The temperature of the flares can soar to millions of degrees.

Solar flares are different to 'coronal mass ejections' (CMEs).

CMEs are huge bubbles of gas threaded with magnetic field lines that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours.

Scientist have discovered a new technique of "helioseismology" this means that scientists can now see inside the sun and follow the plasms flows.

How do the two major plasma flows work?

The first of the major plasma flows acts like a conveyor belt. deep beneath the surfaceof the sun the plasma flows from the poles to the equator. At the equator, the plasma rises and flows back to the poles, where it sinks and repeats.

The second flow is like a taffy pull. The surface layer of the sun rotates faster at the equator than it does near the poles. So as the solar magnetic field crosses the equator as it goes from pole to pole some of it it gets wrapped around the equator, over and over again. This leads to the peaks in solar storm activity. Solar fireworks in the form of flares and CME's dissipate some of the built up energy.

Source

So what can happen when one of these solar flares hits the earth

Solar flares facts -

  • They cause Environmental disturbances: (Geomagnetic storms, solar radiation storms, radio blackouts: xrays, cell phone, GPS, satellite interruptions.)
  • Large solar flares cause Auroras (during x class flares, auroras may be seen very far south)
  • Earthquakes can be attributed to increased solar activity.
  • Large Solar flares can cause shockwaves or bolide explosions (large fireballs in the sky these can also sound like explosions)

  • Ice can fall from the sky

  • Birds can fall dead from the sky (if there hit by a shockwave or bolide explosion) and they may affect marine life.

Okay If your anything like me you now whant to know ...

What does this all mean?

Solar Flares cause Environmental disturbances: (Geomagnetic storms, solar radiation storms, radio blackouts: xrays, cell phone, GPS, satellite interruptions.)

Solar Flares (scientists are now calling them Coronal Mass Ejections (CME)) cause Electro-Magnetic Pulses (EMP’s) or bursts of electromagnetic radiation from a major Solar Flare.

Basically a really large Solar Flare could practically take out the world's electricity distribution on a semi-permanent basis. It would take many years, if not decades, to repair the world's electrical system, even if replacement parts were immediately available. There would be massive damage to power generation, distribution facilities, substations and countless transformers and switching equipment everywhere. When high power transformers used in substations or on utility poles are damaged, they must be scrapped or rebuilt. If the factories that create or repair these electrical components are also without power, they will be unable to rebuild or repair electrical equipment. With an AC power outage, there will be no diesel fuel available to fill the tanks of large heavy goods vehicles used to transport and install the massive electrical components.

It takes an enormous amount of power to bring a power plant online. This power must come from another power plant. If all power plants were knocked off line, or all those in a specific region, there would be no means to start them back up again. It would take a year or two to get one operational again and additional years to power the rest. So it might be a decade for human civilisation to achieve a semblance of what it was, prior to the Solar Flare. That also means no GPS, Internet, Satellite or Mobile phones, T.V, ATM’s, Radio. Also many Fuel pumps use electronic pumping systems.

Scientists from NASA say - "If forecasters are correct, the solar cycle will peak during the years around 2013". "We need to be Preparing for a "solar Katrina," launching a new science, harnessing the talents of scientists around the globe". To find out what you need to have before this happens click here

A Sun Spot shows as a dark patch
A Sun Spot shows as a dark patch

Large Solar flares can cause shockwaves or bolide explosions

 

Ice can fall from the sky

An Alva family says a chunk of ice fell from the sky and landed in their backyard. The homeowner says the skies were clear blue and can't figure out how it happened. Cyndi Smith says she is still trying to figure it all out. "I don't know a space ice comet! I don't have any ideas where it came from," she said.

Monster ice meteors, called megacryometeors, drop singly from cloudless skies and can weigh a couple hundred pounds. More than 50 such events have been reported globally in the past seven years alone, according to a planetary geologist at the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid.

Birds can fall dead from the sky and marine life can be effected.

On the night of New years eve 2011, 5,000 blackbirds fell out of the sky ...

Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for the wildlife commission said, "It’s important to understand that a sick bird can't fly."

Their stomachs were empty, which rules out poison, Dr. George Badley said, and they died in midair, not on impact with the ground. Tests for poisonous gasses and other diseases have turned up negative in all the reports given to the media. Preliminary autopsies on 17 of the up to 5,000 blackbirds that fell on this town indicate they died of blunt trauma to their organs, the state's top veterinarian told NBC .

Game and Fish Commission officers said there were reports of loud noises shortly before the birds began to fall from the sky, which may have accounted for why they were flying at such an unusual hour.

An overhead bolide explosion is enough to send a shock wave into the earth, killing bird’s mid-flight or causing earthquake-like effects. Overhead explosions may have startle the birds out of the trees into the sky, and then the shock wave of another struck them mid-flight as they frantically tried to escape. Birds have much more sensitive internal organs than humans do. By the time the shock wave reached the surface, it would have likely dissipated enough so that any surface dwelling creatures (including humans) were unaffected and probably only heard it as a loud 'thunder'.

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