DEMETER Results Related to Seismic Activity
Résumé
For many years, possible electromagnetic effects prior to earthquakes have been searched for in groundbased and satellite data. These events are interesting because they can be considered as short-term precursors (between a few hours and a few days). During more than six years, the DEMETER micro-satellite was dedicated to checking ionospheric perturbations in relation to seismic activity. However, seismic activity has only a small effect on the ionosphere, which is under the constraints of many different phenomena (solar activity, geomagnetic activity, meteorological events, and anthropogenic effects). To reveal a seismic effect, statistical analyses were then performed with the ionospheric parameters recorded by DEMETER. This paper mainly reports the conclusions ofthese analyses, which indicated that there were perturbations in the ionosphere prior to earthquakes. However, at the end, it was shown with the example ofthe 2010 Chile earthquake that it was impossible to make a full earthquake prediction.