Pre-seismic thermal anomalies of the 2015 Mw = 7:8 Gorkha (Nepal) earthquake from MODIS surface temperature

Earthquake precursor is still a challenging question for scientists all over the world. It is difficult to predict the earthquake with reliable and sustainable evidences in order to mitigate the damages to human life. Although extensive and remarkable achievements on seismic anomalies in the lithosphere, atmosphere, and ionosphere have been obtained with different remote sensors and GPS measurements from all around the world, pre-earthquake anomalies are still challenging. The Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) records variations of surface temperatures and may monitor the thermal anomaly before an earthquake. In this paper, the land surface temperature (LST) data from MODIS are used to analyze the thermal anomalies before the 2015 Mw = 7.8 Gorkha (Nepal) earthquake. The results from MODIS (LST) show temporal variations of the thermal anomalies several days before the Gorkha earthquake, which significantly exceed the normal temperature range. It is also observed that the surface temperature rose to 3°C of the original value in the 10 days before the earthquake. The thermal anomalies may be an intrinsic signature of the earthquake preparing process. The mechanism of thermal breed and generated processes before earthquakes is still unclear, which needs more work and understandings in the future.