Detect earthquakes with your smartphone, it's possible!

Earth Quake Alert System

"MyShake" is the name of this application for Android and iOS that uses the accelerometer present

in smartphones to detect the movements of the earth.

Alive After The Fall

Natural disasters not only cause substantial damage, but they still result in today in the loss of many human lives. Often the number of victims is greatly reduced if the population is warned in time. This is the case with earthquakes, and some countries, such as South Korea, Mexico, Japan, and Taiwan, have already set up networks of seismographs and warning system that warns the population before the start of the earthquake. However, current systems are limited and expensive to implement.

A group of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley had an idea to create a system at a lower cost. Rather than deploying expensive hardware, they decided to take advantage of a technology that already covers the whole territory: smartphones.

The Lost SuperFoods

Soon integrated directly into iOS or Android?

The researchers released an app called MyShake, which works on iOS and Android, and uses the accelerometer of mobile devices to detect earthquakes. Thanks to a study of 100 volunteers, they learned to differentiate the movements due to normal use from the tremors of an earthquake. The app can detect an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 or greater, in which case it sends an alert.

Of course, an alert from a single device does not make it possible to conclude that an earthquake has occurred. However, in 2016 a magnitude 5.2 earthquake was detected by more than 200 smartphones. To date, over 320,000 people have installed the app worldwide. The researchers imagine integrating the technology into a popular app or directly within the mobile operating system to quickly create a global network capable of detecting earthquakes and sending an alert wherever humans are present.

A Smartphone Can Predict an Earthquake

Taking advantage of the accelerometers fitted to all smartphones, the University of Berkeley wants to collect information on the seismic tremors that they can detect, in order, initially, to better understand earthquakes and their propagation. Eventually, the MyShake application could also serve as an alert for a few precious seconds before the earth shakes.

Almost a year ago, a devastating earthquake hit Nepal, claiming more than 7,500 lives. Only a few days ago, the earth shook on the Taiwan side (magnitude 6.5), resulting in the death of 116 people. On Valentine's Day, it was under the sea, 17 kilometers from the city of Christchurch in New Zealand, that a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred. No casualties this time, but a spectacular collapse of a cliff (see the amateur video taken over by 20minutes.fr).

Nuclear Survival

These examples among many others regularly remind us that several hundreds of millions of people live in areas presenting a more or less significant seismic risk. However, a large number of them have or will one day have a smartphone that could well save their lives. In Europe, the CSEM network (Euro-Mediterranean Seismology Center) has long used the Internet network as well as smartphones for “citizen seismology”. The LastQuake application allows you to be warned of the last earthquake but also, for the witnesses of an event, to send information and photographs. In general, social networks now transmit a copious amount of information on earthquakes, usable byseismologists, as evidenced for example by the avalanche of tweets during the March 2011 earthquake in Japan.

But smartphones can also, on their own, detect earthquakes. This is the idea explored by Richard Allen, director of the seismology laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley (United States). In partnership with the German operator Deutsche Telekom, he created with his team a mobile application intended to detect earthquakes.

The Accelerometer of a Smartphone is Very Sensitive

MyShake, that's its name, collects data from the accelerometer, a sensor present in most smartphones. It is he who is used to determine if the person holds his mobile in the direction of the height (portrait) or the width (landscape) to adapt the display accordingly. This sensor is also used by fitness apps to determine if a person is moving, and how fast. Several teams of researchers have demonstrated how reading the data emitted by the accelerometer can be used in particular to identify a mobile terminal, to record everything that is typed on a computer keyboard, or even to hack secret codes from a connected watch.

The MyShake application is able to distinguish a normal movement from an earthquake. It can detect an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5 within a radius of 10 kilometers. The data is collected and then transmitted to the servers of the University of Berkeley. Researchers will then use them to perfect their knowledge of seismic phenomena and study how buildings react. According to Richard Allen, this participatory information system will improve existing seismic networks by providing much finer mapping. Enough to improve the preventive alert systems in the countries that have them.

Home Doctor 

"In any case, in different regions of the planet where there are no customary seismic organizations, there is still a huge number of cell phones. And so, MyShake could also bring this type of pre-emptive alerts to these regions, ”said Professor Allen. According to him, the higher the number of participants, the greater the precision. It will then be possible to upgrade MyShake to make it a full-fledged alert system, capable of sending an alert a few seconds before an earthquake strikes. A few seconds could be enough to save a large number of lives. The app is available for Android smartphones for free on Google Play. An iOS version is in preparation.