Earthquake?

by Bryan

10 comments

1 Steve Bates { 09.10.06 at 1:15 pm }

(Multiple expletives deleted)! I thought the Gulf Coast was free of those things! Did you, or will you, get a wave from it? And in light of this event, has your Mother reconsidered her decision to stay there?

2 Bryan { 09.10.06 at 2:00 pm }

It would have to get a lot stronger to generate a wave, but it is strong enough to argue against setting up oil rigs. This may be a reaction to pumping out oil, gas, and water from their underground storage areas. Caverns may be collapsing, like sinkholes on land, as their contents are pumped out.

My Mother refuses to consider moving again, barring the loss of her house to a disaster.

3 andante { 09.10.06 at 3:39 pm }

“barring the loss of her house to a disaster.” I hope that’s later, not sooner.

The Gulf Coast certainly is carrying a lot of baggage these days; most of it man-made.

4 The CultureGhost { 09.10.06 at 7:13 pm }

Welcome to “my world.” Last quake we had out here was a few weeks ago to the North of us. Rolled the house ever so slightly.

Now I suppose this means we’ll be getting hurricanes out here.

5 Bryan { 09.10.06 at 8:00 pm }

we live in “interesting times”, Andante. A good deal more interesting than I’m fond of.

CG, I saw a mini-tsunami in the pool at my apartment complex in San Diego during a 6.6 when I lived in California, but we didn’t really notice this. We have weapons testing going on around us all the time, and this didn’t amount to the effect of the last MOAB [massive ordnance air burst] test. We assumed it was something at the range.

6 The CultureGhost { 09.10.06 at 9:52 pm }

I am disturbed by your suggestion about the undersea caverns collapsing…it reminds one of the early plot points in a movie/book about an impending ecological disaster.

7 Bryan { 09.10.06 at 10:23 pm }

The oil is coming out of salt domes in many places, and the Peninsula is coral based calcium bedrock with caves underground. You pump out the fluid and you leave a void. Even if you replace the oil with seawater there is a difference that might even cause increased erosion in the salt domes.

You can’t go mucking around underground and expect nothing will ever happen. We have too many sinkholes suddenly appearing on the Florida Peninsula not to think about these possibilities.

8 Steve Bates { 09.11.06 at 1:57 am }

CG, if you have a choice, don’t opt in favor of hurricanes. Once, long ago, I chose to stay here in Houston rather than moving to California, in part because I am familiar with our local flavor of natural disaster. But that’s not to say that hurricanes are preferable to earthquakes. True, hurricanes generally give you time to prepare (today, at least… not so for early-20th-century hurricanes including the one that devastated Galveston). But the worst of them are unspeakably destructive. Katrina is the Gulf Coast’s version of “the big one” in California… and Katrina is repeatable.

Bryan, I often wonder about the effects of having pumped so much of Texas out from under the ground we stand on. There’s no way that doesn’t have some effect, whether we notice it today or notice it a few years from now.

9 Bryan { 09.11.06 at 10:05 am }

Steve, there are places in California where the land has dropped noticeably because of the pumping of ground water, so there is always an effect, even if it is felt somewhere other other than the site of the well.

10 The CultureGhost { 09.11.06 at 3:57 pm }

Steve, the Green Valley fault line resurfaces from Suisin Bay no more than half a mile away. And while its current probably of rupturing at a magnitude of 5.5 or greater is between 3% and 7% in the next thirty years, you still ask yourself once in a while: is today the day?

And then there’s the Hayward Fault.