Posted on 12/15/2006 5:27:29 PM PST by blam
Source: University of Kentucky
Date: December 14, 2006
Researchers Complete Seismic Borehole In Kentucky
Drilling has been completed on the deepest borehole for seismic instruments in the eastern U.S. The four-inch diameter hole for the Central U.S. Seismic Observatory (CUSSO), located at Sassafras Ridge in Fulton County, Kentucky, reached a depth of 1,948 feet, where bedrock was encountered.
The location is near the most active part of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, the source of at least three major earthquakes in the winter of 1811-12, before the region was heavily populated and developed. This location will allow instruments in the seismic hole to gather the maximum amount of data from the region's earthquakes for thorough evaluation of their effects on bedrock and soil and the resulting ground motions.
"Now that the well has been completed, our focus will be on getting instruments installed and collecting data vital to the region," says Jim Cobb, director of the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) and state geologist
The partners in the project, including the University of Kentucky, KGS, and several federal agencies, will now determine the type and number of instruments to place in the shaft and at what depths to place them.
Five partners involved in the project committed nearly $300,000 to the drilling project. Much of the funding came from the U.S. Department of Energy through the Kentucky Research Consortium for Energy and Environment. The Department of Energy has an interest in the region's earthquakes due to uranium enrichment operations at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Edward W. Woolery of UK's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Zhenming Wang of KGS led the effort to plan and secure funding for the project. The next step in the process of completing the project will involve a workshop sponsored by the partners to gather input about the instruments to be placed in the observatory. The partners will apply to agencies such as the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and other sources of funding for the purchase and installation of the instruments.
When instrumentation is completed, the observatory will be added to the Kentucky Seismic and Strong-motion Network, a series of monitoring stations operated by KGS and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
It will add new data on the origin, location, magnitude, and depth of earthquakes in this region to the information currently gathered by the network's 26 instruments.
Data collected will help geologists and engineers better define the earthquake hazard in the region. Knowing the hazard has implications for economic development in the region as well as specific applications for ongoing activities at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
I haven't read the periodicals you've named but won't link.
I read the story as presented. The story indicates a lack of planning. Maybe the story is wrong. Maybe it's right.
You won't provide any evidence from the periodicals you read that support you. Why is that?
I mean, you're so well read, and feel fully qualified to push my face in the dirt for questioning what I read in this post, let's see it!
Show us that the article posted here is wrong.
Earthquakes don't kill people, buildings kill people.
If I've been following this story in other science journals, why shouldn't the folks reading that be doing the same.
Why is it you didn't already know about this?
Lot of stuff going on in Midwestern research that you just aren't aware of it appears. Try this article: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2003/story05-02-03.html
I'm glad you do, and you have full confidence in them even in the face of articles which says they don't know what to do next.
This is, in my mind, a very good use of tax dollars. The comparable boreholes in California along the San Andreas were, in contrast, a total waste of money.
Hillary call for two week waiting period for building buyers.
It's not worth fighting about. The problem may simply be the reporting of the project, and the fact that the reporter couldn't convey the status of the project to my satisfaction. Entirely possible.
I'm not convinced that they know what they're doing, but it's late on Friday night for me, and I think we've about exhausted this discussion.
Hear that, thousand and thousands and thousands of them ~ and all with your tax dollars.
If you know what you're doing, it isn't science...
;^)
If the New Madrid had an 8.8 today the destruction would be unbelievable. It would make Katrina look like a picnic.
L
I certainly share your feelings. When I see a thread with with a science-based topic here on FR, I can easily predict what I'll find when I click on it: a bunch of lame jokes and embarrassing ignorance. Very rarely is there any serious and interesting discussion to be found.
If you know what you're doing, it isn't science...;^)
LOL!....stop that!...that's so true, in so many endeavors. :)
Spending our tax money was the whole point of the program. There is no proven value in this "science". We have no tools that will prevent earthquakes. Of course, someone should calculate the amount of global warming gases and particular pollutant that was caused by the drilling. There is another study worthy of our tax dollars.
There are many good topics/threads...just not recently. :D
Carolyn
KY ping.
I grew up just across the river from New Madrid, in the same county (Fulton) where this project is located. That quake in 1811 sure improved the real estate by creating the marvelous Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, mere minutes from where I lived. Frequently, though, the jam would fly off of the shelf during the many minor quakes.
http://www.amazon.com/When-Mississippi-Ran-Backwards-Earthquakes/dp/0743242785
Just 20 seconds advance warning is going to help 75 million people in the affected area save their lives or avoid injury.
BTW, the whole business is a tad beyond "science" and has crept into "engineering application" ~ it's not like they want to discover what causes earthquakes, or that they can prevent them. After all, we know what "causes" earthquakes ~ the earth moves!
I say spend ALL the money on this project. Do thousands of boreholes. Drop in gazillions of measurement devices.
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