轻松英语阅读：地震的预兆

You may have already seen reports of giant “sea serpents” washing ashore in California. They are a deep-sea fish known as oarfish and can grow as long as 50 feet long. In fact, they are the largest bony fish in the world. Two oarfish, one 18 feet long and the other 14 feet long, were discovered within the same week in Southern California.

Some are concerned that the appearance of these oarfish could be harbingers of a major earthquake. According Japanese legend, oarfish come ashore to warn of coming earthquakes. Some scientists believe these deep-sea fish may be highly sensitive to seismic activity on the ocean floor.

In March of 2010, there were several oarfish sightings by fisherman in Japan. The sightings came right after the magnitude-8.8 quake in Chile and almost exactly one year before the 8.9- earthquake in the Tohoku region of Japan.

However, there has been no thorough scientific study of a link between the phenomena and it could be just a coincidence according to some scientists.

What do you think? Does it worry you?