A qualitative study of the seismo-ionospheric precursors prior to the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy

Abstract. In this paper we use the Cross Correlation analysis method in conjunction with the Empirical Mode Decomposition to analyze foF2 signals collected from Rome, Athens and San Vito ionospheric stations, in order to verify the existence of seismo-ionospheric precursors prior to M=6.3 L'Aquila earthquake in Italy. The adaptive nature of EMD allows for removing the geophysical noise from the foF2 signals, and then to calculate the correlation coefficient between them. According to the cross correlation coefficient theory, we expect the stations which located inside the earthquake preparation area, as evaluated using Dobrovolsky equation, to capture the ionospheric disturbances generated by the seismic event. On the other hand the stations outside of this area are expected to remain unaffected. The results of our study are in accordance with the theoretical model, evidencing ionospheric modification prior to L'Aquila earthquake in a certain area around the epicenter. However, it was found that the selection of stations at the limits of the theoretically estimated earthquake preparation area is not the best choice when the cross correlation method is applied, since the modification of the ionosphere over these stations may not be enough for the ionospheric precursors to appear. Our experimental results also show that when a seismic event constitutes the main shock after a series of pre-seismic activity, precursors may appear as early as 22 days prior to the event.