A preliminary experiment to verify the relationship between radon and atmospheric electric conductivity related to earthquake precursors

Atmospheric electric conductivity is considered an important factor affecting the propagation and coupling of seismic disturbance signals in the lithosphere, atmosphere, and ionosphere. During the preparation of an earthquake, substances released from the solid Earth into the atmosphere may cause changes in atmospheric electric conductivity, thereby affecting atmospheric electrical parameters. However, the specific substances that cause these changes and their extent are not fully understood. This hinders our understanding of the mechanisms that generate ionospheric anomalies before earthquakes and how earthquakes affect atmospheric electrical parameters, hindering earthquake prediction. However, atmospheric electric conductivity is usually only studied by meteorologists, and there are few continuous fixed-point observation data, with observations during earthquakes being almost non-existent. To address this gap, we developed a wide-range, high-sensitivity, high-sampling-rate, and sustainable atmospheric electric conductivity meter for seismic observation based on the Gerdien sensor and tested it in an environment with high radon concentration. The experimental results show that the Pearson correlation coefficient between radon and atmospheric electric conductivity exceeds 0.99, and the significance is less than 0.001. This indicates that radon does cause changes in atmospheric electric conductivity, and they have a strong positive correlation. High temperatures may increase the thermal motion of molecules, resulting in discrete measurement results. Finally, after analyzing the data, we suggest that high concentrations of radon enhance the ionization of the air, leading to an increase in ion pairs. This, in turn, results in a larger ion recombination coefficient. This process may cause deviations in the calculation of theoretical atmospheric electric conductivity based on radon concentration.