• Question: Could earthquakes be prevented?

    Asked by sean to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Sean,
      Not totally. You can cause earthquakes by doing silly things like setting off bombs or pumping oil right next to fault lines, so some people have speculated that you could prevent big earthquakes by causing lots of little ones.

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi Sean,

      As Drew said there are some earthquakes that are caused by us but you couldn’t stop most earthquakes – as they are caused by the earth’s tectonic plates rubbing against each other and we have no control of that. I suggest you don’t live on a fault line!! 🙂

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hey Sean, You cant prevent earth quakes, you cannot control the movement of the techtonic plates that make up the earths crust, which move under over and against each other resulting in earth quakes.
      You can however use science to reduce thier destructive effects. e.g building and bridges in sanfransico (a major earthquake hot spot as it lies on the san andreas fault) have been put on massive springs and ball bearings to make them move with the quake instead of being super ridgid and falling down!!…. hope that helps Good Q!

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hello Sean! There isn’t anyway for us to stop naturally occurring Earthquakes. And, honestly I don’t think it would be wise for us to try! Earth is very special because of its tectonic activity – it allows useful things like water and bioessential elements to circulate through the Earth’s crust. Many researchers think life on Earth couldn’t exist without this cycling. So, it really sucks to have earthquakes, given the devastation they cause, but in the end, its really good that we have tectonics!!

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