Could an earthquake be purposefully triggered by, say, a deep underground nuke in the fault area? If yes, then it could make sense to take a dollar in pennies and to have frequent triggered discharges of accumulated seismic strain so as to get multiple small less destructive earthquakes rather than surprise big ones.
"Could an earthquake be purposefully triggered by, say, a deep underground nuke in the fault area? If yes, then it could make sense to take a dollar in pennies and to have frequent triggered discharges of accumulated seismic strain so as to get multiple small less destructive earthquakes rather than surprise big ones."
I believe some such thing has been considered. However, I wouldn't want to be in the area when they first tested it. We just don't know enough about these earth movements to start fooling around with nuclear explosions around earthquake faults, IMO.
I would think that might not be a wise experiment. One of the most devastating earthquakes in recent years was in the small town of Coalinga. The earth dropped, rather than shook, and they think it might have been from pumping so much oil from under the area, causing a cavern.
Small (around M3-4) quakes have been triggered by injecting liquid waste in wells, and also by filling large reservoirs after a dam is built.
Both probably are better quake triggers than a nuke.
There's no real way to predict what size quake you get from triggering. Evidence suggests that big quakes are just small quakes that get out of hand.