TAIPEI (dpa) — Taiwan and US researchers have found that typhoons can trigger small earthquakes that help to release seismic energy and prevent major quakes, a Taiwan researcher said Thursday.

The research, led by Liu Chi-ching at Taipei's Academia Sinica, was published in the current issue of the British weekly science journal Nature.

''For a long time, no one thought there was any link between typhoons and earthquakes, but we found that there is a link,'' Liu told reporters.

Liu and his team studied the typhoons and earthquakes in Taiwan as the island is prone to both.

They found that from 2003 to 2007, 11 out of 20 slow quakes coincided with typhoons, which are tropical cyclones that originate in the north-west Pacific Ocean.

During typhoons, the atmospheric pressure on land is reduced, and at least in the case of a seismically active zone in eastern Taiwan, this pressure change seems to be enough to ''unclamp'' a geological fault that is under strain and to cause a fault failure.

As a result, its energy dissipates over several hours rather than a few seconds, as is the case with large earthquakes.

The researchers concluded that the small quakes might, therefore, act as a release valve that prevents catastrophic convulsions.

The research was centred on eastern Taiwan, which bears the brunt of typhoons, usually from the directon of the Philippines, and quakes that are mostly caused by the friction of the Eurasian Plate and Philippine Plate off Taiwan's east coast.

Liu said he plans to extend the research area from eastern Taiwan to northern and southern Taiwan to gather more data on the link between typhoons and earthquakes.