Mysterious Blue Lights Precede Deadly Morocco Earthquake, Scientists Investigate

The phenomenon is not new and has often been observed before the occurrence of earthquakes. These bright lights appear in the sky generally for a few seconds, but can last up to tens of minutes. Hundreds of people saw these "blue lights" in Oukaimeden and Marrakech before the earthquake. Scientists are trying to solve this mystery. According to John Derr, a geophysicist who worked at the US Geological Survey, these lights were already visible in antiquity, reports Huffington Post.

The phenomenon was first detected in Sanriku, Japan, in 869. It would have appeared again more than a thousand years later in Kalapana, Hawaii, and 50 years later in Japan (1930), then in 2007 in Pisco, Peru or in Syria and Turkey last February. Researchers have analyzed these lights called EQL (Earthquake Lights) during 65 earthquakes that have occurred since the year 1600, and have concluded that in 80% of cases, earthquakes of magnitude equal to or greater than 5 on the Richter scale have followed the appearance of these lights that could be seen up to 600 km away.

Scientists have also noticed that in most cases, these phenomena occurred in places far from tectonic plates. According to Derr, the blue lights observed in Morocco before the earthquake were very similar to those seen in Pisco in 2007. These lights, visible due to the impurities contained in the rock crystals, suffer excessively when mechanical stresses occur due to the movement of the earth, which generates electricity, explains in turn Juan Antonio Lira Cacho, professor of physics at the National University of San Marcos in Peru.

Other researchers mention "the ionization of oxygen into oxygen anions by the breaking of peroxy bonds in certain types of rocks such as dolomite or rhyolite, also due to high stress." The appearance of these lights could also be due to tectonic movements of the granite layers, or to sudden breaks in the magnetic field and the ionosphere in the seismic zone, develop other scientists. For the moment, the researchers do not agree on the exact cause of this phenomenon. Research continues.

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