A Study of the Correlation between Earthquakes and NOAA Satellite Energetic Particle Bursts

Over the last two decades, potentially interesting phenomena in the ionosphere-magnetosphere transition region have been studied; anomalous particle fluxes detected by several space experiments and correlated with earthquakes. These phenomena are characterized by short-term increases in high energy particle counting rates, called particle bursts. In this work we have used the NOAA electron flux data to study the time correlation between particle rate fluctuations and earthquakes. With respect to previous studies, we have analyzed contiguous particle bursts in order to distinguish correlations with seismic activity from seasonal variations of particle flux and solar activity. Earthquake clustering was initially included to study the types and causes of false correlations.