Let’s say I’m flying over an unpopulated area and there’s an earthquake. Would I even be able to notice it?
I would imagine that any standing water would take on an odd appearance.
There’s often electrostatic discharge too, but that might only look like a regular electrical storm.
I suppose that if there were big cracks opening and and (I forget the correct terminology) those ridges where one area of land falls or rises relative to another you’d see them, plus maybe landslides.
If you had been flying above Los Angeles the morning the Northridge earthquake hit (January, 1994), you would have seen ALL the lights go out. If you had been near Sylmar, you could have seen a freeway overpass collapse. It also did a lot of damage to I-10 between downtown L.A. and Santa Monica; I’m sure you would have seen that. I remember the local TV stations sending out their helicopters after dawn and getting pictures of landslides during the many after-shocks.
Then there was the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 that knocked down the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland and the Embarcadero in San Francisco and postponed the World Series. I’m sure you could have seen all those events from the air.
Here is the Earthquake FAQ page for the United States Geological Survey. If your question isn’t answered, write them and maybe they’ll tell you.
I think the question is not whether an observer can see disturbances on standing water, oscillating telephone poles, etc. I think the question might be whether an observer can see the waves spreading out from the surface over the epicentre – like the shock wave caused by an explosion or the visible shock wave when a supersonic aircraft is flying close to the ground.
If that’s not the question… never mind.
a key factor in the original post is the criteria that the area be unpopulated. Collapsing freeways and blackouts don’t count.
That said, some effects visible from low-flying aircraft might include tsunamis, landslides, and surface faulting (in order of visibility). Unless the earthquake is extremely large or you were flying very low, it would be tough to spot many of these effects unless you were specifically looking for them. Think of the scale of these effects. You would not be able to see ground vibrations.
Aerial view after an earthquake at Joshua Tree National Park. Note the shifted tire tracks. You might have also noticed the dust and dirt that the earthquake probably kicked up.
While it’s not an earthquake (just the result of one), here’s the story and pictures of the aftermath of a 1720 foot tall tsunami. This one may possibly have been visible from space.