Heavy rain can trigger earthquakes

Heavy rain can trigger earthquakes

environment.newscientist.com

Huge downpours of rain can trigger earthquakes in landscapes riddled with caves and channels by increasing pressure within underlying rock, suggests a new study.

It was already known that rainfall could cause tremors, but the amount of water needed is much more than previously thought, says Steve Miller, a geologist at the University of Bonn, Germany.

In recent years, geologists have documented small earthquakes that occurred after heavy rainfall in Germany, Switzerland and France. All were low in magnitude – meaning they could be detected by seismographs, but not felt by humans.

Some experts have suggested that although the rainfall was heavy, the fact that rain could trigger an earthquake at all suggests that it takes extremely little to produce a tremor. They concluded that the Earth's crust in a delicate balance, teetering on the edge of a slight shake-up at any moment.

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German scientists have documented earthquakes caused by heavy rain in geologic formations called Karst. These are areas of limestone with fissures, tunnels and reservoirs that can become water logged in heavy rains. The water acts hydrolically to lift, seperate and lubricate the rock layers leading to fault failure. This demonstrates the delicate nature of the geological condition and how easily it can be disturbed.

Geologists and seizmologists are want to admit an association of quake activity and precipitation or any other event however some independant scientist have long noted the association. Jim Berkland was recently on C2C and predicted quakes associated with the recent eclipse of the moon. I'm not positive but I believe the same person predicts quakes associated with heavy precipitation and high tidal activity and has in fact been very successful in these predictions.

His assumption is that the geology esp. in fault areas is a dilicate balance and anything that affects the equilibrium can trigger a quake.

environment.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Sweet. Here is something else to add to the mix:
Earthquakes in the Himalayas follow the seasons

The article you posted seems to answer the question in my thread linked above (which nobody bothered with).

It is a living planet. It is amazing it has taken science this long to acknowledge that. How about this for earthquake doom? Most snowfall in NORTH AMERICA since 1966. Although I missed where that link is....

reply to post by Beachcoma

Good find Beachcoma!

The article says that statistically the Himilayas experience a much higher frequency of earthquakes durring the winter rainy season.

The Butterfly theory lives. Ok, I realize that heavy precipitation , or tidal action carries a lot more force than the flap of a butterflies wings, but the interconnectivity of all things is the point. If a shout can cause a huge avalanche, anything is possible. Cool find.