Long term continuous radon monitoring in a seismically active area

TL;DR

This study conducted long-term radon monitoring in a seismically active area, analyzing correlations with seismic and meteorological data, and found no direct link between small earthquakes and radon anomalies, but observed correlations with seismic activity patterns.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of radon variations over several years in a seismically active region, highlighting the influence of meteorological factors and seismic activity patterns.

Findings

No robust one-to-one link between small earthquakes and radon anomalies.

Significant correlation between seismic moment release and radon levels.

Radon variations are mainly influenced by meteorological parameters.

Abstract

We present the results of a long term, continuous radon monitoring experiment started in April 2010 in a seismically active area, affected during the 2010-2013 data acquisition time window by an intense micro seismic activity and by several small seismic events. We employed both correlation and cross-correlation analyses in order to investigate possible relationship existing between the collected radon data, seismic events and meteorological parameters. Our results do not support the feasibility of a robust one-to-one association between the small magnitude earthquakes characterizing the local seismic activity and single radon measurement anomalies, but evidence significant correlation patterns between the spatio-temporal variations of seismic moment release and soil radon emanations, the latter being anyway dominantly modulated by meteorological parameters variations.