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Toads Detect Silent But Deadly Pre-Earthquake Gas

By Michael Frank on December 5th, 2011

Stories of animal behavior changing in advance of earthquakes dates back centuries, but now scientists have some clues why that might be, at least with amphibians. Days before a big quake in Italy in 2009, the population of a breeding pond of toads went from 96 to zero. Researchers found that rocks under great stress, such as immediately before tectonic plates shift, release charged particles that can flow through soil until they make contact with air, where ions are created. “Positive airborne ions…cause headaches and nausea in humans and increase serotonin, a stress hormone, in animals,” said the lead scientist, who speculates that the changing underground chemistry could be toxic for the toads.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Toads Detect Silent But Deadly Pre-Earthquake Gas”

  1. the Outage December 5th, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    Interesting that positive ions affect animals so dramatically. Though, maybe, not a surprise; researchers have demonstrated that negative ions can elevate mood–even counteract depression.

    So, if positive ions “cause headaches and nausea in humans,” could we expect to see people who live around fault lines getting sick in the run-up to a seismic event?