Drilling Might Be Getting a Bad Rap For Indonesia's Ongoing "Mud Volcano" 31
davide-nature writes "The freakish event has been blamed on a company that was drilling for natural gas nearby. But scientists have found a rock formation deep below the surface and shaped like a parabolic antenna. It could have focused seismic waves from an earthquake that occurred shortly before the eruption, and onto a clay layer. The clay then liquefied and somehow found its way to the surface."
For more information. (Score:5, Informative)
There is a very long Wikipedia article on this topic that contains a great deal of information on what occurred. While a great deal of work has been done to show that it is not fully the oil companies fault, drilling in to a hydrothermically unstable area with a faulty well design is a recipe for disaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow [wikipedia.org]
Not the only mud volcano (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the only mud volcano (Score:4, Informative)