Detection of atmospheric radon concentration anomalies and their potential for earthquake prediction using Random Forest analysis

Abstract Various anomalies occurring before earthquakes are currently being studied to predict seismic events, with one of them being the radioactive element radon ( 222 Rn). Radon concentrations in the soil, water, and atmosphere fluctuate in response to crustal movement. Recent research has statistically detected anomalies by analyzing the fluctuations in radon concentrations before earthquakes and conducting quantitative evaluations of radon. However, the method used to determine the parameters in the analysis was problematic. Therefore, in this study, we compared observed atmospheric radon concentration data with predicted values based on typical annual patterns using Random Forest analysis. We conducted a more objective analysis by employing this method and statistically determining anomalies using thresholds. This analysis was conducted using atmospheric radon concentration observation data obtained at Kobe Pharmaceutical University (KPU) before the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, and ionization currents emitted when radon decays were obtained at Fukushima Medical University (FMU) before the 2011 Tohoku-oki Earthquake. Consequently, before the major earthquakes occurred at both locations, the difference between the predicted and observed values exceeded the standard deviation by a factor of three. These results indicate the potential of Random Forest analysis to identify anomalies in atmospheric radon concentrations before earthquakes occur.