Thermal Anomalies Detection Using Comparative Method for Small Earthquake

¹ Department of Geological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, 50200 Thailand
² Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Science, Chiang Mai University, 50200 Thailand

Abstract

Thermal anomaly is one of the earthquake precursor in the earthquake preparatory phase. Remote sensing in thermal region has been employed based on the concept of stress accumulation in the active plate tectonics region, which may be transformed as temperature variation prior to earthquake. MODIS Land Surface Temperature has been commonly used to locate the thermal anomalies before the earthquake. Recently researches have been focusing on moderate or large magnitude earthquake events. In Thailand, small earthquake can severely damage the unprepared area. This study, the daily day- and nighttime data of MODIS MOD11A1 product for 30 days before and 15 days after the earthquake on April 22, 2007, in Wiang Pa Pao District, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, were processed and analysed to locate possibility of thermal anomalies. Thermal anomalies before and after the earthquakes were detected using the comparative method. The result found that the thermal anomaly temperature could be high up to 4.1 - 10.9 C which occurred in 21 - 22 days prior to the earthquake. Therefore, it may conclude that small earthquake can also release energy as the detectable thermal anomaly. However, more study about the relationship between thermal precursor and earthquake is needed to continue.