Background and theme of the workshop
In the recent past several disastrous earthquakes have occurred in different parts of the earth and caused huge losses of life and property. Keeping in view the sudden occurrence and disastrous consequences of this natural hazard, all out efforts have been made to find if there existed any possibility of its prediction in advance. Various methods have been employed for earthquake prediction in the past which include measurements such as crust resistivity, magnetic field, geoelectric potential, crustal deformation, hydro-geochemical and thermal anomalies, ionospheric electron density and animal behaviour etc. Unfortunately, none of these techniques has been found to be fully successful in providing convincing solution to the problem. The recently developed electromagnetic technique which is based on monitoring of electromagnetic fields emitted from the seismic zones and observed on the ground and in the ionosphere has shown some likely precursors to large impending earthquakes, but the problem of identifying convincing association of such precursors with the earthquake still exists. Recently, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India has launched a major programme entitled “National Programme on Earthquake Precursors (NPEP)” which is aimed at generating multi-parametric geophysical observations such as geophysical, geochemical, geodetic, biophysical, etc. for prediction of earthquakes precisely in location, time and magnitude.
The purpose of this workshop is to invite experts working in different areas of seismo-electromagnetism and discuss with them possible approaches which can provide a convincing solution to earthquake prediction. The other purpose of the workshop is to stimulate deep interest among young scientists and students who could take up research work in this field. For this reason a topic of general interest dealing with structure and dynamics of ionosphere and magnetosphere and influence of various natural phenomena has been added.