Study of variation in slab thickness of ionospheric F-region during earthquake by wavelet analysis

The present work deals with the anomalies in ionospheric slab thickness of F-region associated with strong seismic activity. In this regard we have considered ionosonde data of Critical frequency of F2 layer (foF2) and Ionospheric Total Electron Content (ITEC) observed for Athens [38°N, 24°E] and Rome [42°N, 13°E] stations. We have considered three cases of earthquake occurring on December 20, 2007, June 08, 2008 and April 06, 2009 and analyzed the ionosonde data of foF2 and ITEC for slab thickness of F-region of the ionosphere in one-hour interval time series record by filtering the geomagnetic disturbances. The result of the study shows that some unusual perturbations were observed in slab thickness of F-region for some days before the main seismic event. It may be due to the generation of seismogenic electric field above the surface of the earth well before the seismic event. This anomalous behavior of perturbations may be used as earthquake precursor.