Sun's Fury, Earth's Tremors: New Link Discovered Between Solar Activity and Earthquakes

"Earthquakes are notoriously difficult to predict," says Matheus Henrique Junqueira Saldanha, a researcher at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Now, a groundbreaking study reveals a potential key to unlocking this seismic mystery: the Sun. In Japan, researchers have discovered a correlation between solar activity and seismic movements on Earth. The study, led by Saldanha, suggests that changes in atmospheric temperature due to solar heat can influence the properties of rocks and the movement of underground water. These fluctuations can make rocks more brittle and prone to fracturing, while changes in precipitation and snowmelt can alter the pressure on tectonic plate boundaries. While plate tectonics remain the primary driver of earthquakes, this research indicates that solar activity could be a contributing factor, particularly for shallow earthquakes originating in the Earth's upper crust. Researchers found that incorporating surface temperature data, influenced by sunspot activity, significantly improved the accuracy of earthquake predictions in their models. "This is an exciting direction, and we hope that our study sheds some light on a more comprehensive picture of the triggers of earthquakes," Saldanha concludes. This discovery offers a new avenue for understanding and potentially predicting seismic events, bringing us one step closer to mitigating the devastating impact of earthquakes worldwide.