Filling large dams causes earthquakes. :: Free Realms

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#1 Jun 18 2011 at 1:55 PM Rating: Good

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Sage

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I did not know this.

From How We Are Geo Engineering the Planet.

Professor Mike Sandiford wrote:

"The largest earthquake in Victoria in the last 30 years was the magnitude five Thomson Dam quake, induced as a direct consequence of the filling of the Thomson dam.

Induced quakes are a common occurrence when we first fill large dams, with the largest record being a magnitude six quake in India."

I wonder if Dam earthquakes would be avoided if dams were purposely filled at a much slower rate over time. IE, are Dam quakes a consequence of a rapid change over time in where a large mass of stuff in the Earth's crust is? Or whether the quakes is a consequence of the change in place in where a large mass of stuff in the crust is, and therefore unavoidable given the choice to fill a dam there?

Edited, Jun 18th 2011 3:59pm by Aripyanfar

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#2 Jun 18 2011 at 3:44 PM Rating: Decent

Debalic

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Probably a combination of both. You also have to consider the drying time of the cement and project timetables.

I also saw a blurb somewhere about how the Three Gorges Dam in China has altered the Earth's rotation, with the amount of cement in the dam itself and the size of the subsequent lake, on top of the crust at that altitude.

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#3 Jun 18 2011 at 4:35 PM Rating: Default

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Thomson Dam in actions-have-reactions shocker.

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#4 Jun 18 2011 at 10:41 PM Rating: Excellent

Kaolian

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Leet Haxör

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Think of it like a board suspended between two sawhorses. If you drop a heavy load on it quickly, it will break quickly. If you set that same load on it gently, it might still break, or it might not. Either way you are still adding strain to the area, and even if that doesn't break there, the tension has to go somewhere. Plate tectonics wasn't even a theory when most of the pacific northwest dams were under construction.

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#5 Jun 18 2011 at 11:21 PM Rating: Good

Allegory

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Obviously I'm not a seismologist, but the answer seems fairly obvious. Earthquakes are the results of massive movements occurring on the mantle. Fillings dams isn't causing them so much as setting them off. Thus, it's largely unavoidable. Additionally, filling of a dam typically takes around a year, maybe a few years for larger dams. Any slowing of the process would have to be of a significantly higher magnitude to make a difference. Decades, minimally.

Edited, Jun 19th 2011 12:21am by Allegory

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#6 Jun 20 2011 at 6:23 AM Rating: Excellent

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Allegory wrote:

Obviously I'm not a seismologist, but the answer seems fairly obvious. Earthquakes are the results of massive movements occurring on the mantle. Fillings dams isn't causing them so much as setting them off. Thus, it's largely unavoidable. Additionally, filling of a dam typically takes around a year, maybe a few years for larger dams. Any slowing of the process would have to be of a significantly higher magnitude to make a difference. Decades, minimally.

Not to jump into fiction, but isn't this exactly what happened in World War Z at the Three Gorges Dam? After having no one left to check seismological activity, the dam cracked and burst. According to the author, the dam was built on a fault line already and was known to have caused minor earthquakes in the past.

It seems like folks already knew this, but just conveniently disregard it.

On a separate note, when I used to play Sim City 2000, hydroelectric power was my favorite energy source. Small, never broke, and clean as can be. Sure beat replacing power plants every 50 years or so.

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