Arkansas Earthquakes Could Be Man-Made

oxide7 writes "The small earthquakes that struck north central Arkansas could be from a combination of natural and man-made activity. Some experts think that pumping water into the ground as part of the extraction process of natural gas could cause local seismic events."

Comments

Re:Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake

[MrNemesis]

For an even more impressive example, read about the Vajont Dam in Italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam

An engineering marvel for its time, the dam was built based on shoddy geology - there was a faultline running up one side of the adjacent mountain. In a nutshell, filling up the dam forced water into the fault, which eventually caused half the mountain to fall into the dam. The dam was well built enough to not break - but the water spilled out over the top and killed about 2000 people.

However, the hand-wringing of the article is a bit unwarranted. It's well known that pumping stuff in and out of rock is bound to cause seismic instabilities. Magnitude 4-5 stuff (assuming they mean moment magnitude? They don't say) is generally considered small fry.

Re:That's OK.

[spun]

Uh, that "philosophy" is not something anyone espouses. It is something people DO, while saying something different. Libertarians reject government regulations, such as environmental regulations. Yet they claim to want government to protect their person and property, as that is the only fitting role for government, providing police and an army. Well, how do you protect people's health and property from negative externalities like pollution without environmental regulations? Do you see, libertarians CLAIM they want government to protect people from assault, but they don't. Pollution is assault. It harms health and property, yet libertarians do not want government to protect you from THAT kind of assault. They want to be free to assault you in any possible way, without interference. When libertarians claim government has a monopoly on violence, what they really means is, "I wish I could use violence to get my way."