Thursday, October 2, 2008

Earthquakes crack open caves

This story has been on the wire for weeks, and I never glanced at it, because I was put off stones because of the 'Balancing Rocks' frenzy. But now even the Economist has picked it up (must be a slow day), so I had a look.

Well, it wasn't a situation of the stalactites (mites) being broken off, but rather new stalactites start to form when the cave system changes it's permeability. This is the number one thing that affects underground openings when hit by an earthquake. It is especially true when there is an open cave system that is clogged up by mineralization (or grout!).

Now what does this have to do with Bruce? Easy, they aren't giving me enough pirate money, so everything has to do with Bruce! :) It's just that open, unstressed, fractured rock systems are extremely susceptible to earthquakes. Sometimes the change is rather violent, with rapid flooding. At the very best, the Bruce DGR will stabilize the underground openings with lots of grout (which they never say anything about!), but this is generally useless when earthquake seismic waves roll in. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to be there! (I never want to be anywhere!).

No comments: