Android Phones Can Detect Earthquakes Before the Ground Starts Shaking
This is a cool phone feature. “AEA demonstrates that globally distributed smartphones can be used to detect earthquakes and issue warnings at scale with an effectiveness comparable to established national systems”:
“The global adoption of smartphone technology places sophisticated sensing and alerting capabilities in people’s hands, in both the wealthy and less-wealthy portions of the planet,” the researchers, including Richard Allen from the University of California in Berkeley’s Seismological Laboratory, wrote in the study. “Although the accelerometers in these phones are less sensitive than the permanent instrumentation used in traditional seismic networks, they can still detect the ground motions and building response in hazardous earthquakes.”
According to the study, 70% of the world’s smartphones are Android phones, which by default come with the aforementioned sensing and alerting capabilities. From 2021 to 2024, the AEA system detected an average of 312 earthquakes per month across 98 countries. The earthquakes had a magnitude between 1.9 and 7.8, and the system alerted users of earthquakes at or over a magnitude of 4.5, averaging around 60 events and 18 million alerts per month.
The AEA system also collected user feedback, revealing that 85% of users who received alerts experienced shaking, with 36% receiving the alert before, 28% during, and 23% after the shaking began.
Tags: seismic data android phones mobile-phones earthquakes science alerting earth