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Anticipating Earthquakes
dnahelix writes "Science @ NASA reports 'High above Earth where seismic waves never reach, satellites may be able to detect earthquakes--before they strike.'"
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Earthquakes serve as a population control mechanism, and have been for all of time.
Advanced humans (Americans, etc.) need to stop messing with Mother Nature and just let things run their course.
Why does Science always have to rear its ugly head? Just let things be.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Early detection leads to prevention. I'm not sure what the ramifications would be if one could be prevented, but I have a feeling earthquakes happen for a purpose.
"The planet does not revolve around the US. There are many places where earthquakes are a major part of everyday life."
You are absolutely correct. The problem is that this article is coming from NASA, and last I checked, NASA is a US government agency. So, we'll be using our resources and spending our money to develop a technology that we'll probably be nice enough to let the rest of the world use. So read about the San Andreas fault and say thank you.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
Any resident of California could tell you that...
I guess with the current state of affairs, any progress would be good
Makes me think, though. Ability to detect variations of 1mm over the course of a year? How do they account for, say, a satellite drifting slightly (gravity, solar wind, whatever)? How do they measure that? What are their tolerances, a few angstroms?
(Not trolling, just asking)
Have EVDO, will travel.
ummm the purpose is to SAVE LIVES... who gives a damn about property/possessions when your life may be in danger...
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
The questions have been solved. Emergency managers on the US east and gulf coasts (and, I assume, their counterparts in other nations affected by tropical cyclones) have plenty of experience running evacuations without causing the collapse of civilization.
This of course assumes several days notice. If only hours or minutes are available, a tornado siren approach would be more effective.
But then again, I could be wrong.
Sure maybe animals do sense many impending earthquakes, but their behavior is not interpreted as pre-earthquake behavior and goes unnoticed.
Hence, they are as reliable as grandma's old bones are at predicting the weather.
If that was not true, we would have earthquake prediction by animals on a regular basis (which we do not have).
Maybe if we could learn the ways of Dr. Dolittle and talk with them we would be able to do better in this area. But I'm not holding my breath.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
"the Global Earthquake Satellite System (GESS)"
If I want money from Congress to deploy a constellation of satellites to detect earthquakes, would calling it GESS be my first choice?
Yeah, an early warning system for earthquakes sounds all well and good, but how exactly do you go about warning the public? If you go on TV and say "tomorrow there will be a 7.5 Earthquake under downtown Los Angeles", you run the risk of causing a panic in which people will die trying to get out of the city in what could only be described as the traffic jam from hell to get west or north.
If the earthquake occurs, you're a hero; you saved the lives of hundreds if not thousands. If the earthquake doesn't, or is much smaller than predicted, you caused lots of people to die for no apparent reason, and you've lessened the public?s readiness to believe you the next time you make an earthquake prediction like this.
This is nothing like trying to evacuate the shoreline of a major city for an approaching hurricane, because when those evacuations are issued they are in fact for the shoreline. You would be, in theory, proposing the evacuation of an entire metropolis, which no city in this country, or the world for that matter, has the proper infrastructure to handle such an evacuation unless you gave a lead time of a week or so.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Sort-term earthquake prediction- hours to weeks- is pyschologically comforting, but not that important in saving lives or property. One needs to predict the maximum likely earthquake force in a neighborhood in order to properly contruct buildings and roads to last for at least 30 years and save lives. In this area the USGS and State Geologic Surveys have made great progress. Case in point: The 1994 Northridge, California earthquake and 1995 Kobe, Japan were the same magnitude, yet the second killed ONE HUNDRED TIMES more people than the first. The success of the Northridge quake was partially attributed to luck and partly to that Los Angeles had more newer buildings than Japan that had implemented the more serious construction codes. It is tragic that M5 quakes that barely spill coffee in San Jose, California, but level mud-brick buildings and kill hundreds in some third world country.
I've been in three near M7 quakes in California and I can testify how psychologically traumatic a sudden quake is. Short term prediction would be comforting. It would also save some lives in large buildings like schools and stadiums (even though the 1989 San Francisco quake happended during a Wolrd Series baseball game without fatallity). And in reving up rescue crews.