Preseismic Ionospheric Anomalies Detected Before the 2016 Taiwan Earthquake

Abstract

On 5 February 2016 (UTC), an earthquake with moment magnitude 6.4 occurred in southern Taiwan, known as the 2016 (Southern) Taiwan earthquake and 2016 Meinong earthquake. In this study, evidences of seismic earthquake precursors for this earthquake event are investigated. Results show that ionospheric anomalies in total electron content (TEC) can be observed before the earthquake. These anomalies were obtained by processing TEC data, where such TEC data are calculated from phase delays of signals observed at densely arranged ground-based stations in Taiwan for Global Navigation Satellite Systems. This shows that such anomalies were detected within 1 hr before the event.