Earthquakes and global electrical circuit

Based on recent experimental and theoretical model results, the role of earthquakes and processes of their preparation as electricity sources in the global electric circuit (GEC) is discussed. In addition to the traditional elements of the GEC, such as thunderstorm currents, ionosphere currents, fair weather currents, and telluric currents, hypothetical seismogenic currents flowing between the faults and the ionosphere are considered. The ionization sources for these currents are presumably the radiation of radioactive gases and the ionization by the electric field of so-called “positive holes” created by the compression of tectonic plates, whereas transportation of electric charges between the Earth and the ionosphere occurs under the action of electric fields and turbulent diffusion (for heavy charged species). Seismogenic currents deliver electric charges into the ionosphere, which give rise to electric fields in it and in the magnetically conjugated region. The drift of magnetized plasma in the ionosphere F2-region and plasmasphere plasma under the action of these fields causes disturbances in the electron density and total electron content (TEC) of the ionosphere, which are observed by GPS satellites before strong earthquakes. The typical features of these disturbances (magnitudes, dimensions, stability, nighttime predominance of the relative TEC disturbances, geomagnetic conjugacy) are well reproduced in theoretical model calculations based on the solution of the equation for the electric ionosphere potential with specified seismogenic electric current at the lower boundary of the ionosphere if this current is strong enough (comparable with thunderstorm currents). The feasibility of such seismogenic currents is discussed. It is argued that the TEC disturbances observed before strong earthquakes cannot be explained by neutral atmosphere disturbances. These TEC disturbances can be treated as ionospheric earthquake precursors created by seismogenic GEC disturbances.