Is it possible to "create" an earthquake?

aquitaine

Hypothetically if you buried and detonated a dozen or a hundred nukes along an active fault line, like the San Andreas, would the release of that much energy cause a major earthquake along that faultline?

DaveC426913

Only if the plates were locked such that pressure had been building up, and your nukes managed to dislodge the lock.

Most of the time the plates slide bumpily past each other, resulting in small, frequent releases over the length of the fault. Occasionally, they get stuck and get go with a larger release which we feel as an earthquake.
Your nukes would not do much of anything unless they were in the right place at the right time and the plates were really stuck and ready to blow.

Shieldwolf

Several thoughts here; living 90 miles south of the Nevada test site I can assure you every time an underground blast happened the ground shook just like an earthquake.
Another thought is putting a high yield device Nuclear, Bunker buster, or several, in an active volcano would certainly cause the earth to shake just like earthquakes that are caused when the Volcano erupts. whether or not it would cause the Volcano to erupt would be a different question. I suspect such an explosion even in a dormant Volcano, with underground vents would radiate quite a movement.

Dotini

Natural gas injection wells are alleged to cause clusters of small earthquakes in Arkansas. The quakes have tapered off since two of the wells were shut down. The industry denies responsibility and calls for more science, so a geologist with the Arkansas Geological Survey is investigating.

http://abcnewsradioonline.com/nation...rthquakes.html

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

Nik_2213

Uh, one proven way to create quakes is to build a big dam and fill its large reservoir. IIRC, this was a serious consideration for China's Three Gorges project. The dam itself could be built with strength to spare, inspection galleries etc etc, but the worry was that any quake along the gorges could cause a major rock-fall, damming the river and/or launching a 'tsunami' which might over-top dam & locks, wrecking infrastructure and potentially creating a 'domino' failure cascade...

Fluid injection in any fault-zone always seems to prompt a spate of small quakes. Deep-well waste disposal and 'Fracking' for gas or geothermal heat are common culprits. IIRC, exploratory 'fracking' in NW UK has temporarily halted while geologists investigate several shallow '2.x' temblors. Given that even a '2' is national news in UK, the locals are very unhappy at having their nerves rattled...

PajoTheDwarf

Changing the tectonic loading is a possible way to change stress on the faults and cause earthquakes. For example melt Gigatonnes of Ice from the polar regions and add it to the Oceans and it could theoretically cause a whole lot of Earthquakes around the worlds coastal regions.

It would be pretty indiscriminate, so nothing like your nuclear bombs.

AlephZero

"Fracking" for shale gas has been suspended at a site in the UK, after two small quakes with "similar location and mechanism".

http://utilitiessavings.co.uk/2011/0...er-earthquake/