Bacteria To Protect Against Quakes

Roland Piquepaille writes "If you live near the sea, chances are high that your home is built over sandy soil. And if an earthquake strikes, deep and sandy soils can turn to liquid with disastrous consequences for the buildings built above them. Now, US researchers have found a way to use bacteria to steady buildings against earthquakes by turning these sandy soils into rocks. 'Starting from a sand pile, you turn it back into sandstone,' the chief researcher explained. It is already possible to inject chemicals into the ground to reinforce it, but this technique can have toxic effects on soil and water. In contrast, the use of common bacteria to 'cement' sands has no harmful effects on the environment. So far this method is limited to labs and the researchers are working on scaling their technique. Here are more references and a picture showing how unstable ground can aggravate the consequences of an earthquake."

Comments

Research needed!

[FredDC]

It seems to me that alot of research is needed to investigate possible side effects of such a process. Changing the soil composition is going to have far greater consequences than just protecting against earth quakes! Especially when used over large areas.

Also I wonder how one would contain these bacteria, and stop them from spreading? I don't think we would want our beaches turned to stone...

I am generally very reserved when it comes to releasing living organism where they don't belong and/or trying to alter the environment. There are just too many factors involved, and there is no way we can cover them all!

Re:Research needed!

[Applekid]

There's lots of manipulation of nature by the human animal that hasn't spelt doom and gloom. The history of the species is pretty much a showcase of manipulating nature as we evolved away from nomadic lives. Agriculture, housing, infrastructure: all of it is about pushing selected external organisms away while favoring others. Sometimes it's the elimination of all other life like in building a mall or a power plant, sometimes it's the selected cultivation of certain organisms like wheat and beer yeast.

The fact that humans happen to manipulate nature to our needs is as much a consequence of what we do as beavers building dams, mice digging holes, spiders lashing webbing between trees.

Of course there have been a lot of problems with solutions that end up causing problems. But they seem to stand out apart from the millions of successes over millenia of mankind. I mean, "build somewhere else" is easy to say when there's lots of land to be spared, but tell that to Japan (for just one example) with some of the highest population to land area ratios in the world. Attempts to make vulnerable areas less so are simply a matter of intelligent mitigation rather than just throwing your arms up when a whole city could be potentially levelled.

Jeez

[dr_d_19]

I know people think Quakers are wierd, isn't biological warfare a bit too much?

Sorry.

potential fix for ground water problems in Boston?

[DrewMIT]

Here in Boston, about most of the city's residents and commercial property is sitting on land fill. (At its time, the filling of Boston's Back Bay was the nation's largest public works project ever. The Big Dig is us reclaiming that dubious title) Buildings sit on wooden pilings that are buried in the landfill below the water table. As long as those pilings stay wet, the buildings and streets on top of them are supported. But if and when the water recedes, those pilings start to rot, and bad things can (and likely, will) happen. A century's worth of construction has started to upset groundwater levels. Since most of the landfill material used was sand, I wonder if this discovery could be used to solve the problem here in Boston (and any other cities with similar problems).

Water handling for one...

[scsirob]

When making such radical changes to the soil, the first thing to look at is how water is being handled. Sandy soil lets water through, and in fact filters it quite nicely. Rock will keep the water on top, causing all sorts of interesting issues. Like cars and furniture floating thhrough the streets...

Welcome to Malibu Rockpile.

[goombah99]

Gazooks, what if this gets loose on the beaches. It's a cinch people with eroding beaches threatening buildings will be injecting this stuff along shorelines.

Alt. Construction..?

[skelly33]

Could something like this be used as a low-cost concrete alternative structural building material in 3rd world locations where chemical concrete mixes might not be affordable...?