Is there any truth in the rumour that the technology is under development in North Korea?

May be fit them with big bearings so the move freely. No shock at all when they move.

It is plausible that strategically placed and timed "Thumper Trucks" could trigger a small stress relieving quake. It is also just as plausible that these thumps can trigger a large quake or that the small induced quake can now set up a large quake to happen elsewhere. It is far more likely that any force produced from any trucks will do nothing at all.

We don't know enough about the three dimensional forces that happen in any layer of bedrock to make any short time predictions of cause and effect. We know even less about the forces happening in the mantle that resides under the crust.

Can you imagine the ambulance chasers that would be trying to collect collecting 'damages' from the causer of the 'small quakes'? So far, they haven't figured out how to sue Mother Nature.

Is this how Lex Luther started out? Are you buying up desert property as well?

The next thread will ask, "Is it possible to relieve an overloaded snowbank with just a small avalanche?"

The danger is in not knowing how much stored energy is just waiting to be relieved. I suppose certain periodic triggers could be used maintain an area subject to stress, but how do you start? When is it safe to tickle a giant?

And then there are the legal implications. What happens to you when your trigger sets off enough of a stress relief that someone's house falls down? Are you thinking that wouldn't be your fault? Care to ask a jury?

Random strikes by natural causes are the preferred types because everyone thinks they are indestructible or that bad stuff always happens to other people. If that were not true then we would have no cities built on areas that are known to be dangerous. Perhaps a few more sacrifices at the alter would help.

This is a map of the quieter half of the USA. These are quakes, not fault lines. Fault lines may be impossible to identify until after they have caused a quake. I read that every state in the country has faults lines.

Where to begin? California maybe? San Andreas Fault

I'd suggest that the energy yielded by surface seismic "thumper" devices would be insufficient to cause any movement in a fault underground (unless it were just ready-to-go and this were the straw theat broke the camels back as it were).

Application of energy where it matters is another thing though. Getting a device down to the fault and then applying a high energy "jolt" or more likely a resonance might be able to induce a limited slip or seismic event..... Interesting puzzle.

My understanding of stress faults is limited but I think most faults occur at great depth and would not be affected a heck of a lot by surface vibration. At least vibrations at a level that would be needed to cause a control earthquake. I grew up in mining towns where drift blasting was practiced (blasting at the end of a tunnel to take out a portion of the tunnel or drift that follows a mineral seam). We could always tell when a shift was nearing its end because there would be tremors and a rumble when the blast went off. In one town the mine was over 5000 feet deep. A round of blasting usually removed 12 feet of drift. Come to think of it we never had an earthquake. Do you suppose the blasting deep in a mine was causing controlled earthquakes? Nah, these mines were in the Canadian Shield, a very old formation and not known for any earthquakes.

I only point this out because most earthquake epicenters are located a depths greater than 70 km. I would expect all surface attempts and deep drilling attempts to be futile and expensive efforts.

That Avalanche comment is the one extreme end of this scenario. There is another extreme end to this: Is it possible to fight fires with fire?. The answer is yes. It is common practice in some fire fighting circles to light a fire, taking into account the direction of the wind. The idea is to make the wind drive a new fire into the direction of the offending fire so as to starve the main fire of combustion material.

I would imagine that this discussion might want to take on such a direction. Now whether there is sophisticated enough knowledge, technology in the field of geology and earthquake monitoring prevention, I don't know. We would need the input from experts in this field. I sometimes interact with geologists.

Just a slight diversion : From my scant experience of mining in South Africa, I know that the gold miners have very good feel for the behaviour of rock. In days gone by they had a system of tacit tacit communication where they used to convey messages after observing tell-tale signs of the behavior or rock. There is a Sociology thesis by Jean Ledger [Wits University, SA] documenting this kind of tacit knowledge that exited among gold miners.

Just off hand, my guess is that the attempt to divert tensions in rock or plate is not impossible. Remember : Those that say "Cannot be done" are often proved wrong. I would imagine that Japan or Korea might well have looked into such ideas already. Gold mining in South Africa is becoming increasingly expensive due to the fact that the remaining resources lie in increasingly deeper locations (4.2 km is the deepest so far). And also in locations where there are faults that are known to result in hazards.

I suppose that major movements of plates would be difficult to curb because of the sheer size. But what about minor tremors, etc? On the other hand, one might want to consider that uninformed tampering with rock might even make things worse.

A case in point such efforts is the leaning tower of Pisa. Successive governments in Italy funded attempts to straighten out the Tower which was slipping causing it to lean ever so slightly farther each year. In the beginning, each attempt actually made it slightly worse. Then in the 1990's, I think, the tower was stabilized at least so as to prevent further tilting. In the case of Pisa they do not want to make the tower perfectly straight, off course. This would remove its' uniqueness and its tourist appeal.

Questions is : Do can we benefit from any attempt to absorb and neutralize tremors or minor shifts in the rock?

a) In the case of Mining? - Yes

b) In preventing earthquakes? - Not sure [We need input from the experts here].

If there are any geologists tuned into Cr4, Please provide some insight here.

Follow-up : There may well be ways of inserting barriers to the spread of faults. Much like one may do when attending to a crack in the motor-car's wind-screen. In this case, drilling a small, neat hole at the end of a crack will usually prevent the crack from spreading further. Might there be an equivalent scenario in rock or plat/ earth movements? Or is the sheer volume of the earths plates way above all of this?

I would imagine in a mining setting this might be feasible. What about some input from mining engineers. Although, I am involved in metallurgical industry, I know little about actual mining.

My colleague was involved in the development of a "smart bolt" which is inserted in a mining structure for example. It will detect weaknesses and unwanted movement in a structure. This is then transmitted to a computer where the structural integrity can be monitored. I would imagine that any attempt at altering or controlling rock behaviour would require monitoring of the rock. The application of devices such as smart bolt would come in handy in such endeavours.

Another request : Where are the Japanese or Korean inputs in this discussion? Could be that this discussion has already been taken up in these parts in far more detail.

I have never considered an avalanche as an earthquake. Rather the avalanche and landslide are an aftereffect of an earthquake. However, it may be possible to trigger an earthquake with a nuclear device and have it explode on known fault lines. That would be an induced earthquake and classed as artificial.

The Russians have been experimenting with high charges of electrical pulses introduced into a fault area. Although the article claims success, I remain a little dubious. Electromagnetic waves do not travel far through the earth. Try getting a cell phone signal driving through a tunnel and you may realize its limitations. The Russians are using about 2800 amperes. That will make your hair stand on end if you are anywhere near the pulse. I provide this as a shared interest in artificial earthquakes.

You are right in that miners could listen to the rocks to tell a little about the behavior of the local rock. They could tell if loose rock or possible cave-ins were a danger. Unfortunately, it did not always work and I knew many kids with a lost father due to mining accidents. The smart bolt sounds like a good idea in mines. The temperature gradient of the earth is about 22.1 degrees C/ km of depth. So at 4.2 km the temperature must be over 90 degrees C. Whew, I hope the air conditioners are sized properly or they equip miners with cooling suits.

The stresses or small fractures found at these shallow depths are not the same as those faults caused by plate tectonics. Plate tectonic movement is much deeper and I think that is the limiting factor in causing artificial earthquakes.

the tectonic plate boundary in 4/5D (read 4.5±.5D) looks something like this
~~~~~~~ water
¯¯¯¯||¯¯¯¯ basalt
.../¯¯ ¯¯\ horiz. tunnel network extending from "tunnel"
...\_...._/ <- below NW eu (not Scandinavia)
.....|..| toward molten interior
----^^-- not a magma chamber but plate separator "tunnel"

+ (not related to above)

My Computer:\

Tomographic evidence for the mantle upwelling beneath southwestern Japan and its implications for arc magmatism
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 254, Issues 1-2, 15 February 2007, Pages 90-105
Junichi Nakajima, Akira Hasegawa

http://www.acri.fr/retina/RETINA_0032_desc_of_work_v6.PDF

http://ebooks.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/escidoc:43343/component/escidoc:56124/IS_8.4_rev1.pdf (there's near real time 3D seismic mapping databases-network for California ? and surroundings -- i cant find that resource -- can be found tracking the subj. @ CA .edu-s (no time for this right now))

suggests: (let your programmer friend to help you) write a higly simplified although integral "fault line" simulation -- program some "non destructive" stimulating vibration based relief scenarios . . . XD earn your (and your asocieate Prf. ) PhD online

You just might be onto a new hot topic idea here. The problem comes back to my point earlier. Regardless of our desire to either produce or never create an earthquake, the forces present in our crust are immense, complex and baffling. We may be able to use waste water, fracking and CO2 sequestration to test geologic formations but we cannot say that drilling, pumping or thumping at any specific site will make or prevent an earthquake.

I would say thumper trucks would be far too feeble considering the immense forces involved, and too far removed from the faults. An atomic bomb might do it, buried deep enough in a strategic spot.

Perhaps the problem with understanding such a proposal if one of scale. From the responses I see above, it is clear that some have no capacity to recognize the size and scale of geologic activity.

As another example, lets say that you have a battleship in dry dock (on land). Instead of a Thumper Truck, I'll give you the biggest hammer you can manage. You take a swing at the battleship with everything you have. Do you think you could hurt the battleship or cause things to move around?

Surely a land mass under stress miles down and along a fault zone for miles represents many times the mass of a battleship. Let's assume you could trigger an unstable mass into motion. What would prevent it from rolling over you and squashing you like a bug? Do you suppose the size of the trigger would determine the size of the reaction? Perhaps the problem is in understanding what an unstable system implies.

Not even road builders like to mess around with unstable geology. Blowing a hole in the ground for the purpose of mining is generally done only in stable areas. Geology that contains instabilities get people killed all the time.

Below is a link that indicated that Fracking, Injection, and other drilling activities can and have produced quakes of over 5, and this is only in the USA.

Don't know the stats world-wide.

It appears that it may be feasible(IMHO) to tickle the monster without waking it if low level stress relief was introduced along known faults.

Surrounding areas could be advised and be prepared if necessary.Better to evacuate in an orderly function than in a panic after an unpredictable event strikes.

I really have no illusions about this technology being employed anytime in the near future, but someday....who knows.

http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-fracking-doesnt-cause-quakes-but-the-ground-shakes-061812.aspx