Application Prospect of Environmental Isotopes and Tracing Techniques for Earthquake Prediction

In recent years, with the progress of new observation techniques and related theories, the tracing technique of environmental isotopes has been widely applied to investigate the groundwater dynamic process. It's expected that the tracing technique of environmental isotopes will contribute to identifying the dynamic information of groundwater, which is associated with the earthquake gestation and occurrence. In this study, along with the characteristics of stable isotopes including 2H and 18O, as well as radioactive isotopes such as 3H and 14C, the tracing techniques are investigated. Especially, with the environmental isotopes, the activity rules of groundwater including the groundwater recharge, circulation depth of geothermal water, water-rock interaction, and groundwater age are deeply discussed. The study was carried out to analyze effects of the groundwater on its response to the stress-strain changes and to the tectonic activities. It's worthy to mention that the tracing technique of environmental isotopes can be applied to identify the information of seismic subsurface fluid, determine the intensity of seismicity, discuss the role of fluid in earthquake gestation, and estimate the earthquake-reflecting effectiveness of borehole.