Is tsunami man's interference with nature

[saiarun]

Is Earth quakes and the resulting tsunami formed because of man's intereference with mother nature.

for example: Is frequent taking out of crude oil from Earth or taking underground water results in Earth losing its equilibrium and resulting in earthquakes
Thanking you in advance.

 

[dextercioby]

That would be something...

I may not be the only one in this world that thinks man cannot change the way tectonic plates in the upper mantle move and how they subdue one under another.
When u say Earth,u mean the whole "Enchelada"??The whole 6*10^{24}Kg??

Daniel.

 

[thunderfvck]

My teacher believes the same thing (not about the tsunamni specifically, but about the origin of all these disasters). He believes that there is an equilibrium within nature and when man begins to pump other things into the environment, the environment is forced to comply by causing a shift in the equilibrium so as to bring that equilibrium back. This shift is what we see as all the disasters nowadays, most definitely including the tsunami.

 

[russ_watters]

The Earth is big, guys. We don't have the means to makes such changes. An atomic bomb blast 1000 feet into a fault probably wouldn't even do it (remember, this earthquake and tsunami released orders of magnitude more energy than all of the Earth's nuclear weapons combined). We are puny little children compared to the forces of nature.

 

[Gokul43201]

...the environment is forced to comply by causing a shift in the equilibrium so as to bring that equilibrium back.

I think Mother Nature may have made a calculation error.

The tsunami submerged hundreds of square miles of tropical rainforest, displacing thousands of primitive tribespeople that have been living in harmony with nature, as well as several species of birds and animals.

Not one oil rig, coalmine, large-scale manufacturing plant or other big polluter was destroyed. On the other hand, this has lead to increased resource consumption in terms of the fuel consumed to transport food, water, aid workers and supplies, the wood and other materials used to rebuild homes for the displaced, etc.

Ouch !

 

[matthyaouw]

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but minor earthquakes and significant land subsidence have been attributed to the extraction of oil and the digging of mineshafts in some areas (California has been affected by the oil extraction, Northern england by the mining). I believe there was also an earthquake in either China or India that was thought to be triggered by the pressure caused by the building of a large dam and resivoir. If anyone would like a name or date to go with the earthquake I mentioned, let me know, and I will try to find my old college notes.

 

[Gokul43201]

Just as a clarification : my previous post was partially in jest. I should have used some smilies. Here :

 

[landmanbob]

A number of small quakes occurred in Denver in the early '60s. Turned out that toxic wastes being pumped into a deep shale formation lubricated the fractures enough to cause slippage, ergo quakes! I confess; I designed the pumps for the Rocky Mountain Arsenal!

 

[russ_watters]

Welcom to PF!

A number of small quakes occurred in Denver in the early '60s. Turned out that toxic wastes being pumped into a deep shale formation lubricated the fractures enough to cause slippage, ergo quakes! I confess; I designed the pumps for the Rocky Mountain Arsenal!

The question is, though - how small? 3? 4? 5? -- 1?? Seismographs are extremely sensitive (they picked up and located the Kursk explosion - I'm sure an underground cave-in could be too), but the Richter scale is logarithmic: even a magnitude 6 (a medium-sized earthquake) is 1,000 times less powerful than the one just recently in the Indian ocean.