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Abstract. On 18 January 2011, at 20:23 UTC, an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 occurred in southwestern Pakistan (latitude 28°44' N, longitude 63°56' E) at a depth of 68 km. We present the results of the analysis of very low frequency (VLF) radio signals, received at three stations located in India. We analyze the VLF signals around this earthquake day and look for possible precursory effects of this earthquake. For our analysis, we use four different VLF propagation paths. These propagation paths are DHO–IERC (Sitapur), VTX–Pune, VTX–ICSP (Indian Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata) and NWC–IERC. We observed significant shifts of the "sunrise terminator time" (SRT) for DHO–IERC and VTX–Pune paths. For DHO–IERC path, the SRT of the VLF signals shifted towards nighttime three days before the earthquake day, and in the case of VTX–Pune path it shifted towards nighttime just one day before the earthquake day. For VTX–Kolkata path, the shift of SRT is four days before the earthquake day, but here the shift is not so strong, somewhere between 2σ and 3σ lines. For the other two paths, namely, DHO–IERC and VTX–Pune, the terminator time shifts crossed the 3σ line. We found no significant shifts of SRT for NWC–IERC propagation path. Higher deviation in the VTX–Pune path as compared to VTX–ICSP path could be due to the proximity of the former to the epicenter. Similarly, DHO–IERC path is over the epicenter while NWC–IERC path is totally away from the epicenter. This could be the reason why the effect in DHO–IERC path is stronger than that in NWC–IERC path.

Abstract. VLF signals are long thought to give away important information about the lithosphere-ionosphere coupling. In order to establish co-relations, if any, between the ionospheric activities and the earthquakes, we need to understand what the reference signals are, throughout the year. The best opportunity to do this is during the period of solar minimum where the number of flares and sunspots are negligible and the data would be primarily affected by the sun and variation would be due to normal sunset and sunrise effects. In this paper, we present the result of the sunrise and sunset terminators as a function of the day of the year for a period of four years, viz, 2005–2008 when the solar activity was very low. The terminators are for the 18.2 KHz VTX signal of the Indian Navy as observed from Indian Centre for Space Physics receiving station located in Kolkata. A total of 624 days of data have been used to obtain the mean plot. Any deviation of observations from this so-called the standardized calibration curve would point to influences by terrestrial (such as earthquakes) and extra-terrestrial events (such as solar activities). We present examples of deviations which occur in a period of 16 months and show that the correlation with seismic events is significant and typically the highest deviation takes place up to a couple of days prior to the seismic event. Simultaneous observations of such deviations from more than one station could improve the predictability of earthquakes.

Abstract. We show evidences for anomalous ionospheric behaviour in the signal of Indian navy VLF transmitting station named VTX due to earthquakes in the South Asian region. We concentrate on the variation of the D-layer preparation time (DLPT) and D-layer disappearance time (DLDT) in a period of sixteen months and study their average behaviors. We identify those days in which DLPT and DLDT exhibit significant deviations. Separately, we compute the energy release by earthquakes during this period and show that "anomalous VLF" days are associated with anomalous energy release. We find that the anomaly and the deviation of DLPT and DLDTs from the mean are linearly correlated. We discuss the predictability in this approach and compare with the terminator shift approach using the same set of data.

Abstract. We present the results of an analysis of year-long (2007) monitoring of night time data of the VLF signal amplitude from the Indian Navy station VTX at 18.2 kHz, received by the Indian Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata. We analyzed this data to find out the correlation, if any, between night time amplitude fluctuation and seismic events. We found, analyzing individual cases (with magnitudes >5) as well as statistical analysis (of all the events with effective magnitudes greater than 3.5), that night time fluctuation of the signal amplitude has the highest probability to be beyond the 2σ level about three days prior to seismic events. Thus, the night time fluctuation could be considered as a precursor to enhanced seismic activities.