The issue on real faults is they span massive areas. The San Andreas fault system spans basically the entire coast of California.
Even if we could identify the right points there's a big liability shift both legal and political between doing nothing and intentionally setting off an earthquake that would be hard to predict the size of. It's part of why proscribed burns fell out of favor, it's way easier to do nothing and blame nature than defending damage caused by intentional acts. It gets into messy areas where it's hard to convince people that the damage was lesser than it otherwise would have been in the future.
The energy being released in these many tiny earthquakes was always going to exist in this location. Much better to release it slowly via thousands of tiny earthquakes than all at once. Better to have 10k magnitude 3 quakes than one magnitude 7.
There isA study about fire fighting. If you shit down every fire quickly then eventually you’ll have a major black swan. If you let fires burn a bit more then you’ll avoid black swan effect that burns down everything
It's logarithmic so you'd need more like 30,000 magnitude 3 earthquakes to equal the energy of a magnitude 7. I don't think it's clear this is better. You can also make the argument that this may trigger the large earthquake that might not have happened for a long time.
This article does a very poor job of differentiating earthquakes people feel and care about versus magnitude 2 quakes that are like your neighbor dropping a book upstairs.
Endless captcha loop for me, is there an archive? (archive.ph etc. has the same issue for me)
sure, https://archive.is/xjmvA
How long until someone attempts to diffuse a pent up fault line via nuclear geoengineering?
Sounds like a plot for a Superhero movie ;)
Not exactly a superhero movie, but The Core (2003) is kinda related
Personally I was thinking of the Bond movie "A View To Kill" (the plot to destroy Silicon Valley through activating the San Andreas fault).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1978_film)
Dibs on Otisburg.
Project Plowshare says hello:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
It's been theorized and allegedly attempted - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectonic_weapon
Never, fer get it, in a word, insurance.
The issue on real faults is they span massive areas. The San Andreas fault system spans basically the entire coast of California.
Even if we could identify the right points there's a big liability shift both legal and political between doing nothing and intentionally setting off an earthquake that would be hard to predict the size of. It's part of why proscribed burns fell out of favor, it's way easier to do nothing and blame nature than defending damage caused by intentional acts. It gets into messy areas where it's hard to convince people that the damage was lesser than it otherwise would have been in the future.
Could this be considered a good thing?
The energy being released in these many tiny earthquakes was always going to exist in this location. Much better to release it slowly via thousands of tiny earthquakes than all at once. Better to have 10k magnitude 3 quakes than one magnitude 7.
It can go either way, you might get a relief of pressure or you might get an increased destabilisation in the region.
There isA study about fire fighting. If you shit down every fire quickly then eventually you’ll have a major black swan. If you let fires burn a bit more then you’ll avoid black swan effect that burns down everything
[delayed]
Don't tell orange man this he may try to nuke the california fault line
It's logarithmic so you'd need more like 30,000 magnitude 3 earthquakes to equal the energy of a magnitude 7. I don't think it's clear this is better. You can also make the argument that this may trigger the large earthquake that might not have happened for a long time.
This article does a very poor job of differentiating earthquakes people feel and care about versus magnitude 2 quakes that are like your neighbor dropping a book upstairs.
So does that mean the Korean Peninsula is no longer a geologically safe region from earthquakes going forward? That's scary.