USING THE PENETRATING ABILITY OF COSMIC MUONS FOR THE EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION

Abstract

The study of radiation erosion began in the 50–70 s of the last century. It was relatively quickly shown that the removal of atoms and molecules from the surface when irradiated with low-current beams of accelerated ions with energies of 10²–10⁴ eV occurs as a result of pairwise collisions of fast particles with atoms of matter, i.e. so-called collision spraying. Cosmic ray muons are also high-energy charged particles, and therefore there is a possibility that they, too, can destroy the structure of solids when hit. It is this property of muons that suggested that they can be used to predict and monitor earthquakes in seismically active zones. Muons falling into the earth's crust gives rise to EAS and streams of different particles when interacting with atoms of certain rocks can destroy their structure and, as a result, this destruction (cracks) is accompanied by acoustic effects.