It ’s 2013 . We ’ve sent world to the moon and can send trillions of gigabytes zipping around the world with the tap of fingerbreadth , but still — still — we ca n’t predict earthquakes . But we do cognise this : Messing around with a fault — injecting thing in it , take thing out of it — can have earthquake .
At theAmerican Geophysical Unionmeeting this workweek in San Francisco , geologist discuss some of the short - sighted human decisions that have rush earthquakes . While it ’s difficult to definitively link an earthquake to a human natural action retrospectively scientists have found compelling grounds of human contributions to a number of quakes . Here are some potential seismological ruefulness .
It ’s just water , but , man , water is weighed down . prominent reservoirs of water create by dams have a long history of inducing earthquakes , fromZambia to Greece to India . The2008 earthquake in Sichuan , China , that killed nearly 70,000 people was one of the most devastating in late memory , and some scientist call back it was spark by the twist of the Zipingpu Dam nearby .
Zipingpu Dam , image viaWikimedia Commons
The Zipingpu Dam posture just a third of a mile aside from the fault , and the tot weight of million of tons of water could have hastened the fault ’s rupture . “ No geological process can come up with such a denseness of deal in such as small area other than a vent , ” articulate geologist Christian Klose about the buildup of water .
Taking water out of ground , which induce the water table to put down , can also destabilize an be fault .
A 2011 earthquake in Lorca , Spain make a great amount of devastation for its 5.1 magnitude because its epicenter was place so close to the Earth’s surface . Its shallow epicentre may be related to groundwater extraction near Lorca , according toresearch publishedin Nature Geoscience . Since 1960 , water origin has caused the part ’s water table to drop by an unbelievable 250 meters .
Aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault . exposure by Leohotens viaWikimedia Commons .
At the end of the infamous San Andreas Fault in California lies the Salton Sea — and , along its southerly shore , is the Salton Sea Geothermal Field . The power plant extracts hot , high - blackmail water out of the ground and turns it into steam to run turbines generating power . If it seems like a bad melodic theme to be distill body of water so close to the San Andreas Fault , well , you ’d be right .
In a2011 study published in Science , research worker at the University of California , Santa Cruz , found that seismic activity has increase around the Salton Sea as geothermal field functioning have ramped up . temblor swarms — salvo of dozens of small quakes below magnitude 6 or so — happen regularly along the Salton Sea . While these temblor swarm by themselves may not cause much harm , they couldinteract with other gravid faults , like the San Andreas locate so conveniently nearby , to induct far more detrimental quakes .
Several hundred miles north in California is also the Geysers Geothermal Field , the big geothermal field in the world . Because the Geysers do n’t sit near a great mistake , induce seismicity there isless likelyto be majorly destructive . However , research worker have find that seismicity in the area has increase from basically zero in the sixties to20 or 30 small-scale seismic events per class .
When it number to hydraulic fracturing , or fracking , it ’s actually not the origin of oil color or gaseous state that ’s the problem . . It ’s what encounter to those later on , when waste fracking fluid is injected back underground into deep wells . The fluid can ooze out and lube faults , do them to slip more easily . Astudy in Geologylinks a 2011 Oklahoma earthquake to wastewater injection wells .
seismal activity in Oklahoma has shot up along with the rise of fracking : The identification number of temblor die from about a XII in 2008 to over 1,000 in 2010 . quake swarms are now even occurrences in the neighborhood . With fracking in the United States steady increasing , the dangers of wastewater shot wells become more impendent .
Photo viaWikimedia Commons
The tallest construction in the world when it was built , the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan was supposed to be the city ’s crown jewel , able of hold out typhoon winds and earthquake . Ironically , the very things supposed to make it earthquake - resilient may be … make quake .
According to a Taiwanese geologistCheng - Horn Lin , Taipei 101 ’s specially huge heap of 770,000 tons is putting too much pressure on the mild sedimentary stone below . This strain is due to all the extra sword and concrete used to make the skyscraper solid enough to withstand earthquake . Since construction began on Taipei 101 , according to Lin , the region has see several micro - seism and two larger earthquakes forthwith underneath the construction .
During itsconstruction in March 2002 , a 6.8 seism did pick apart two cranes to the undercoat . Taipei 101 itself , though , was undamaged . So , if the skyscraper does cause earthquakes in the future , at least you know where to go ?
When the Seattle Seahawks scored atouchdown on a fumble return last week , the seismometer down the block was restrain score . The University of Washington ’s seismometer just one block south of CenturyLink Field register a order of magnitude 1 or 2 earthquake from the rumbling of Seahawks devotee . When your seismometer is so close , though , does it even really count ? Well , here ’s an empowering content : support close enough to a seismometer and you , too , can cause your very own earthquake .
[ scientific discipline – Mother Jones – KQED – The Guardian ]
Top paradigm : IrinaK / Shutterstock
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