Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to just an unscientific poll on earthquakes

If you're getting that big an increase in frequency....

you might want to find out if some company or government agency in your area is using a technique called fluid injection. Back in the 1960s, the Rocky Flats Nuclear facility near Denver, CO used fluid injection to get rid of nuclear wastes. When they started doing this, there was a sharp increase in earthquake frequency in the area. When they stopped, so did the earthquakes.

This isn't some conspiracy kook theory, it has been verified by geologists. Here's a quote from USGS FAQ page:

Q: Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?

A: Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada. The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established. (Nicholson, Craig and Wesson, R.L., 1990, Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1951, 74 p.) Other human activities, even nuclear detonations, have not been linked to earthquake activity. Energy from nuclear blasts dissipates quickly along the Earth's surface. Earthquakes are part of a global tectonic process that generally occurs well beyond the influence or control of humans. The focus (point of origin) of earthquakes is typically tens to hundreds of miles underground. The scale and force necessary to produce earthquakes are well beyond our daily lives. We cannot prevent earthquakes; however, we can significantly mitigate their effects by identifying hazards, building safer structures, and providing education on earthquake safety.

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