Earthquake prediction technique based on GPS dual frequency system in equatorial region

Abstract

The ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) measurements were investigated at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTMJ on 20 February - 20 March 2007. The observation was made 14 days before earthquake and 14 days after earthquake. TEC is extracted using GPS dual frequency data which in RINEX format that supplied by JUPEM (Jabatan Ukur dan Pemetaaan Malaysia). In order to reveal possible earthquake precursor through the changes variation of TEC reading, Southern Sumatra Indonesia earthquake that happened on 6th March 2007 is chosen as a study case. The results show that satellite facilities may detect earthquake precursors in ionosphere 5-11 days or a few hours before main shock and various grounds based or satellite observation have shown strong perturbation of the ionosphere after earthquake. The results show a good agreement with other researchers who studied other earthquakes.