Scientists Link Deep Wells To Deadly Spanish Quake 118
Meshach writes "Research has suggested that human activity triggered an earthquake in Spain that killed nine and injured over three hundred. Drilling deeper and deeper wells to water crops over the past 50 years were identified as the culprit by scientist who examined satellite images of the area. It was noted that even without the strain caused by water extraction, a quake would likely have occurred at some point in the area but the extra stress of pumping vast amounts of water from a nearby aquifer may have been enough to trigger a quake at that particular time and place."
Re:It's too complicated for me to understand ... (Score:5, Interesting)
How can it be that "Human activity triggered an earthquake" when a quake "would likely have occurred at some point in the area" ?
Imagine I pull out a gun and shoot you. Well, you would have died eventually anyway, right?
Re:It's too complicated for me to understand ... (Score:5, Interesting)
the interesting question is if triggering it sooner made it less severe or more severe.
Re:It's too complicated for me to understand ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh, I'd prefer to use the analogy of pushing a boulder down a hill at his house, rather than waiting for erosion to do it a few years later. With a gun, you're changing how it happens and introducing all sorts of other complications. Even better, if we want to remove intent from the equation, maybe my house was next to the boulder and I left a hose running, which washed away the dirt under the boulder, leading to its cascading down the hillside into his house. While naturally-occurring erosion would've done the same job eventually, I just helped it along with some human-caused erosion.
Re:It's too complicated for me to understand ... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is also a question of location. Drilling for water in populated area may have shifted epicenter of the quake closer to the population center in question.
Re:No, I haven't. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've heard of Spic in Span though. Is that where you're thinking of?
No, Spic and Span [wikipedia.org] is what I meant.
Although it appears that it's seen on the official web site's [spicnspan.com] title as Spic 'n Span, but that's missing an apostrophe. The product appears to say Spic and Span.
Like how people abbreviate "until" to "till" instead of "'til" - missing the apostrophe and adding a letter L, making it a different word (till as in cash till, or verb: to till the land, etc.)
Or, better example, Rock 'n Roll.
Interesting tidbit from World Wide Words [worldwidewords.org], via Wikipedia:
Re:It's too complicated for me to understand ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Legally the only question is if this makes the people doing the drilling responsible for the damage caused by the earthquake. In previous cases involving things like erosion the answer has generally been "yes", even if the damage was inevitable.