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Deadly 1933 Long Beach Earthquake May Have Been Caused By Oil Drilling, Says Study (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: A new study suggests that the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, the deadliest seismic event in recorded Southern California history, may have been caused by deep drilling in an oil field in Huntington Beach. The study, written by two leading U.S. Geological Survey scientists in Pasadena and to be published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America on Tuesday, also suggests that three other earthquakes, including magnitude 5.0 earthquakes in 1920 in Inglewood and in 1929 in Whittier, may also be linked to oil drilling. The two government scientists, Susan Hough and Morgan Page, wrote the report after a review of nearly forgotten state oil drilling records. They discovered that the epicenter of some of the Los Angeles Basin's largest earthquakes between 1900 and 1935 happened shortly after significant changes were made in oil production in nearby fields. During this era, the Los Angeles area was one of the world's leading oil producers. The report's finding does not mean that oil drilling is causing earthquakes in Southern California today. The study only focused on earthquakes between 1900 and 1935. Different scientists have looked at earthquakes during more recent decades and have not found any reason to blame oil production for triggering earthquakes more recently in the L.A. Basin. The reason could be that oil drilling practices in the L.A. Basin have changed dramatically since the years when oil was first discovered in this region, and today's techniques may be safer and thus unlikely to trigger earthquakes as they might have done long ago. The Long Beach earthquake killed about 120 people and caused major damage throughout the region. It was named the Long Beach earthquake because the worst damage occurred in that city, even though the epicenter of the earthquake was actually in the Huntington Beach area. The quake destroyed many brick buildings, and prompted officials to ban new construction of unreinforced brick buildings.
That's impossible. We all know fossil fuel extraction is totally harmless and that Christ himself protects people from such things.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Reading the article, it doesn't sound like this study is based on anything other than correlation. X happened, and Y happened at around the same place, at around the same time. There's no real description of mechanisms, or proposed experiments that could validate a mechanism, or predictions that could be validated against future events.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Sorry folks, too lazy (and too many beers) to look up the correlations - but it only stands to reason that if you damage (drill, extract, frack) the foundations, then the results invariably will lead to ground resettling for the area(s) above these operations i.e.earthquakes in the areas being destabilized by drilling (cracking / shattering the foundation with the bore-holes), extraction (removing substantial parts of the foundation materials), and fracking (literally fracturing the foundation to release hydrocarbon elements bound into the rocks).
I'm going to have to go with the 'greeners' and the environmentalists on this issue.
redneck geek
You sure? I thought it was caused by the Russians...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Removing the oil from the ground should minimize tectonic shifts when the lubricant goes missing?
Only when the cavity the oil occupied settles to take up the space the oil left behind. There's a word for that event.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
But no, I wasn't there at the time. In my time we had a little of the original 1920s construction, some post-earthquake buildings, and some new postwar structures.
Earthquakes are caused by massive amounts of energy built up by the movement of tectonic plates. Drilling for oil, geothermal drilling, fracking, etc. do not add enough energy to "cause" a quake, even through ground settling. They can trigger a quake to happen earlier than it would have naturally, but that's just releasing energy that would've been released at some time in the future as a natural earthquake.
Blaming earthquakes on drilling is like blaming the camel's broken back on the straw. The straw may have triggered the back to break, but it didn't cause it. All the other stuff piled up on the camel before the straw was 99.99% responsible for causing it.
Yes but you are applying one dimensional thinking.
Try filling a glass of water with sand and pebbles.
Next pour out the water.
Now try to find the cavity.
Not so large as initially expected is it?
It's been a very long time since Slashdot did that. You must be new here.
Ground resettling != Deadly earthquake. Since a few years we have our share of earthquakes, in a region with pretty much zero natural geological activity. These are minor: small amounts of energy released relatively close to the surface, resulting in small quakes of a magnitude between 2 and 3. But because these happen so close to the surface, they still do damage (in a small area). This is a simple case: pretty much everybody (including the oil companies) agrees that the quakes are caused by large scale gas production in the region since the 50s
When it comes to these deadly quakes, things are not so simple. The amounts of energy released are such that this cannot be explained merely by subsidence of the overburden. It is possible, as others have pointed out, that this subsidence has triggered a bigger quake... one that was already waiting to happen.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Does a murderer cause a victim's death or trigger it? The victim would have died "at some time in the future as a natural" death.
That analogy would work, if the murderer does something relatively subtle that wouldn't normally kill a person, but takes advantage of a condition that would kill the person anyway. I don't know, maybe give a person with a serious heart condition a fright or put them in a situation where they have to exert themselves.
The earth is made of sand and pebbles?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Everything I've read and heard on the recent earthquakes is that re-injection of spent water is as likely if not more likely the culprit than the actual extraction, particularly at high pressure near faults: http://news.stanford.edu/2015/...
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Here we go again. "could have been changed forever" Just like liberals saying sharks still circle an area in the Atlantic Ocean, where slave ships dumped slaves bound for the America's. Oh, by the way, the AFRICAN people put their own in slavery...others just bought them.
So far as I know nobody thinks oil in the ground lubricates movements along a fault.
It may help to think not in terms of earthquakes, but in terms of what comes in between earthquakes. Stuff is in equilibrium, which means forces are balanced and stuff isn't moving around. If you remove a force (such as that exerted by oil in hydrostatic equilibrium), you have a weak spot and the system shifts to a new equilibrium point. That shifting is an earthquake, and the movement is along faults -- which aren't necessarily exactly where you removed the oil from; the slabs of rock the faults separate are simply moving to the point where forces are balanced again.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Oh, by the way, the AFRICAN people put their own in slavery
The slavers were mainly North African Arabs. So WTF is up with African Americans adopting Islam?
I used the same words to show the similarity. (a) If something would have happened otherwise, like a person dying or an earthquake occurring, then an (b) action would be a trigger and the (c) action would not be a cause.
No, the point here is that the drilling and oil extraction is not enough on its own to generate the Long Beach earthquake. There's not enough energy there. That means it is triggering an existing condition. Generic murder is not analogous.
Very frustrating to be modded down for pointing out such a simple logical error
Correcting errors by generating new ones is not very effective. Maybe less hand wringing over other's irrationality and more cleaning up your own house?
Let's see, a million barrels of oil would be about 10^10 cubic inches. A glass of water has a base around 10 sq in. That glass of water would be about 10^9 inches tall. That's about 1/15th the way to the moon. I don't think there is a material out there that can make a glass that tall without collapsing under its own weight. Bear in mind, you're not pulling that through a single well (as you suggested). For example, Texas produces a few million barrels a day from wells numbering in the six figure range. So you're talking tens of barrels a day, not millions. Perhaps an entire Saudi oilfield could produce that much.
No, it's because A/C's don't have girl friends.
Someone has a heart problem. You hold them up at gun point. The robbery triggers a heart attack and they die. Do you think you would be charged with felony murder? Quite likely.
They have an existing condition that anything could trigger. You trigger it by doing something illegal. You are guilty of killing them under just about any state's laws.
Good, that's an excellent analogy.
BeauHD twitter feed. "Trump is a saggy sack of shit. If any one of you is even remotely considering voting for him this November, please unfollow me. "
Fucks sakes he posted a News for Nerds the otherday from Slate, WTF?