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2.5 Mile Deep Hole Drilled Into San Andreas Fault
iandoh writes "Cool research: Geologists at Stanford University and the US Geological Survey have drilled a 2.5 mile deep borehole into the San Andreas fault. They've extracted over one ton of rock from 2 miles down, and they'll be installing sensors down the length of the borehole."
Oh, sure, just do his work for him. Why not install some nuclear warheads down there while you're at it.
This sounds like a bad scifi film where they have to mine some tachyon fracture fault or the universe will explode.
... one milllllion dollars!
Or was it a Lex Luthor thing? Can't keep the earthquake inducing villains straight.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The fault is between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, both of which IIRC are more than 50 miles thick. Why are we looking at only the upper 5%? ( Modern oil wells are drilled as deep as 6 miles or more now. )
Geologists at Stanford University and the US Geological Survey by drilling a 2.5 mile deep borehole into the San Andreas fault, caused a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
It's probably the CIA trying to recover a lost Soviet rock diver.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
12:50 - press return.
Don't they know this will cause a fault to spread across the hemisphere and cause a major part of the planet to fly away.
Let me tell you something. After digging that hole I am ready for a six-pack. And I wish they would have thrown in a pair of gloves, cuz I gots some serious blisters.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Holy snappin' assholes that's deep!
They've extracted over one ton of rock from 2 miles down, and they'll be installing sensors down the length of the borehole.
I wouldn't want to be the guy who's in charge of monitoring sensory data from something called "the bore hole". that sounds like a really tedious job.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
or is it 4.2 KM?
I feel our economy will be well served by the extra 6 energy.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
They should dump a few tons of super glue down there. That'll fix her.
Maybe they'll name it after George Takei.
They drilled in a part of the San Andreas fault that creeps and doesn't generate big earthquakes. My take is that they're looking for a lubricant, something that allows the fault to slide. Another possibility would be merely that the fault doesn't have bends or splits in it unlike the faulting at the south end of the San Francisco Bay. The San Andreas fault runs along a chain of mountains south of Silicon Valley and then north through San Francisco, following the coast thereafter, while the Haywood fault runs along the base of mountains east of the Bay area from Milpitas to north of Oakland.
If a lubricant is responsible for the fault creep, there are apparently several possibilities: water, serpentine (which can be formed by weathering or metamorphization of several minerals including olivene/peridot), or talc (formed by serpentine exposed to water). If you have talc, you probably have the other two as well. Serpentine is a bit harder than talc (the latter is soft enough to easily scratch with a fingernail), but both deform easily under pressure. I seem to recall cases where serpentine has "bubbled up" over millions of years through denser rock, acting as a very slow moving fluid.
As I see it, if we can understand how to lubricate faults, then it is possible to not just trigger faults, but also to ease pressure on a fault. Maybe the cost of the materials will make it infeasible, but we can consider it now.
Not THAT bad... kinda.
Can someone please explain how to unlock this feature ? Is it similar to the Hot Coffee mod ? Where can I download it ? I've been playing San Andreas for years but have never encountered any kind of drilling mission or mod.
Oh yeah, I love boreholes. Damn that just sounds so dirty, it sounds like a really weird sexual fetish.
Keep the Mole Men down there where they belong!
This guy needs some serious upper body development. Look at his arms! If he is going to keep working drill rigs, he will need to start getting some serious guns if he plans on packing drill cores around.
Either that, or he better stick to chalk boards.
I say in place of the sensors, we put a flag there - so we know who's fault it is!
'In early December, a "sample party" will be held at the USGS office in Menlo Park, where the cores will be on display and scientists will offer their proposals to do research projects in a bid to be allowed to analyze part of the core.' I can only imagine the carnage after some disappointed geologist grabs a sample of core and teaches them all whose fault it is...
No, thank you. I'm not checking there for a hidden package.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
OK, help a brother out here. I don't get the reference.
My favored culprit for drastic friction reduction during faulting is lubricating Silica Gel; finely crushed quartz in the active fault zone reacts with water forming fluidic silica gel. There is excellent laboratory evidence of silica gel lubrication in simulated fault zones (see Mineral Gel May Reduce Rock Friction to Zero During Earthquakes, http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100325. All that is needed is field evidence, and I think I have it.
Then again, maybe we shouldn't butter her up. I hope Pele's bad sista' Shake-Shake doesn't feel violated and go tectonic on us -I live on the fault!
I don't get why this is newsworthy. Pretty boring to me.
*rimshot*
*runs and hides from the angry mob*
c'mon mods. You need to drill down a bit for your sense of humor indicators.
...it was again about us crossing the frontier to California...
I was like, holy madre de Dios, wtf?
Seriously, was this tagged goatse to stop me clicking the link? I mean this is slashdot, it's not like I would have clicked the link anyway.
SAFOD is part of the Earthscope project. I work on the GPS portion of the project called the Plate Boundary Observatory in a consultant role.
There is actually a funny story I was told about the original earthscope project proposal. I have no reason to doubt its validity, but I wasn't there:
The original proposal was made to the higher ups at the National Science Foundation. While the scientists made their grand sweeping pitch to NSF, there was a debate in the background on whether or not to show the final slide with the cost of the project.
At the end of the presentation, the NSF manager says "How much is this going to cost me?"
They pause and finally put up the last slide: $400,000,000 (400 million) over 5 years
The response of the NSF manager: "YES! Your finally bringing me a project that isn't some nickle and dime deal that I have to cover out of my budget. I can go to congress and make this a congressional line item. Excellent."
And he managed to pull it off. That is the way government works.
Regards,
--Keith
worships hole in ground.
All adjacent areas are reporting increased energy and mineral production. Peculiar worms have also been reported in the area.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Ooh...maybe a bat-like apparition will fly out again...
Quick! Someone spread a rumor and see if it shows up on TBN!
..but sticky
I have ridden the mighty moon worm!
But what if they drilled right through the unfortunate testudinate?
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Great; there's a hole now, artificially changing the semi-predictable nature of the problem. What's going to fill it? Oh, yeah....water. The same thing that fills the empty space under Houston where they've been pulling oil out for over a century.
Like the other poster mentioned, does digging a mere 5% into this famously-fragile section really reveal anything we didn't know before? Seems like they'd pick a place that _doesn't_ have 20 million people involved, if they open a hole to say, lava or something else that induces a change under there...but I'm just a layman.
It's just the line "don't tug on Superman's cape" comes to mind...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
You forgot K-Y jelly.
Loderunner + GTA, now THAT'S a game!
Is this the same hole that 007 plugged in 1987.
Idiots!
What a dumb move.
Geophysicist Nerd 1: "Hey let's drill a hole 2.5 miles into a known fault!"
Geophysicist Nerd 2: "OK! Let's do it."
drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill
Nerd 2: "Now what?"
Nerd 1: "Ummm... How about we put some sensors down there?"
Nerd 2: "Hey! Why not!!!"
Nerd 1: "Errmmm... Shit! We've only got 1000ft of wire!"
Nerd 2: "Damn!"
.
.
"Hey! What's that really hot red stuff bubbling out of the hole?"
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Whilst the study will provide insight to many issues, it will not help as you have described.
The expanding/contracting earth hypothesis has long been discredited. It was originally proposed as a mechanism for mountain/basin formation. See this excerpt from Kearey & Vine, Global Tectonics (excellent book on the subject I used studying geology at uni)
http://books.google.com/books?id=usiqam9p7GAC&pg=RA1-PA248&lpg=RA1-PA248&dq=expanding+contracting+earth+hypothesis&source=web&ots=zMEsYJotvA&sig=zlFveSBMr73m6Srq3ahXADG8Vkc
Vibration analysis - I assume you mean the geophones that are placed downhole will help. However more comprehensive global coverage with seismometers would be better. The global seismometer net (instigated to monitor nuclear detonations from the the 1950s) is predominantly northern hemisphere.
Fracture mechanics - potentially. However the mechanics of crust/mantle deformation are better studied through other avenues.
In Soviet Russia, San Andreas Fault bores YOU! *yawn*
I always went the super eco route, to the point where it was better for me to plant fungus than farms or mines. The huge mindworm boils were pretty entertaining as well. You couldn't control the main stack from a fungal bloom (at least not that same turn), but all the ones around it? No problem.
The only time I did boreholes I did it to hasten global warming, and flood out my enemies coastal cities. Muahaha.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
They got the monsters out in Surface the series ???
Russian scientists dug the deepest hole on the planet in Siberia, but bottomed out at about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) below the surface.
Last I heard the Kola Peninsula is not in Siberia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Gentlemen, I give you the Vulcan. The world's most powerful subterranean drill. So powerful it can penetrate the earth's crust, delivering a 50 kiloton nuclear warhead deep into the liquid hot core of the planet upon detonation every volcano on earth will erupt.
Drilling cost go up as square of depth. Oil companies can afford spend a hundred million to drill five miles below two miles of water. The NSF cannot afford really deep holes. The entire NSF earth science budget is lees than the average oil company single deep water hole.
/.Ville? /.Ville?
"Borehole", isn't that a slang word for a jerk who hogs a meeting?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
you fools! you'll let the balrog out!
Beavis and Butt-head are listening to Stuart and Mr. Whatsisname work on this science project:
Mr. Whatsisname: Stick it in my borehole, Stuart. Drill it deep, Stuart. Sink it all the way in, Stuart. Now push your sensor deep in, Stuart. If you're having trouble, move the rocks out of the way, Stuart.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Someone seriously needs to give one of the guys from the article a hand http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/october10/gifs/SAFOD12-CarryingCore_4477.jpg It looks like that core is about to break him in half. And there you go, typical construction site, one guy working... two guys watching, in this case, taking pictures.
I was really starting to wonder about all those recent earthquakes
Did Stanford just buy up some real estate in Nevada?
Scott Carr
Now all they need is a huge cotter pin.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Thanks.. It's been a long time, I missed it.
Nobody's tagged this story "boring" yet?
People who aren't from that part of the country might want to first learn about important details like the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Quoting the Wikipedia article (which quotes USGS and the University of Memphis), {t]he seismic zone covers parts of five U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee."
Anything that shakes the ground enough to make the Mississippi River change course or (temporarily) "flow backward", as eyewitness reports have recorded, is not something I particularly care to be close to. But then, I grew up in the Bay Area and, as a loyal Giants fan, was in Candlestick Park for World Series Game 3 on 17 October 1989...."game called on account of earthquake", for those with short memories.
Another reason to get humanity off this rock - it just isn't safe anywhere.
Aside from the trolls and "bore hole jokers" I actually "learned stuff" about geology from your original post and I'm actually a little more curious about it.
/.'ers)
We're not all 12-year-olds... ("we" meaning
Here's to the crazy ones
Cutting 135ft of core from 12000-odd feet is absolutely routine. I've pulled similar lengths of core myself on 3 occasions in the last couple of years.
Absolutely routine.
I see the lazy so-and-so's are doing up the Jubilee clips with a power drill, instead of suffering with the traditional bent screwdriver that's the wrong size. And it's not snowing either, which is normally the case for core catching. Obviously there's a lazy shit-bagger somewhere up in the chain of command, doing the organisation. No way is this the first time this bunch has cored.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Put a turbine on the hole.
Pump water down.
Harvest the steam, sell the energy.
Use the funds from the geothermal power facility to fund the second hole.
Repeat.
Given you've converted enough water to steam it should be cool enough to go deeper.
I think it would be something like:
1. Let gravity pull water through hole.
2. Earth heats up water and causes steam.
3. ????
4. Profit!