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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.
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. )
It's probably the CIA trying to recover a lost Soviet rock diver.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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 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.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
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.
In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (a spiritual branch from the Civilization series, which I consider better than any of the Civ proper games that followed it), thermal boreholes are terrain improvements that provide +6 energy and minerals (a great deal by the game's standards).
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
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!