For those who have liked my water polo videos, I have some more.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Arkansas Earthquake -- Injection Continues Forever
Article
According to a list published on the commission's website, there are currently 412 companies connected to the oil and gas industry in the state. But there are three companies digging for gas using seven active disposal wells in the moratorium area -- three commercial and four non-commercial, Shane Khoury, deputy director and general counsel for the commission, told FoxNews.com.
Southwestern Energy, which announced production in 2008 of more than 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the state's Fayetteville Shale, and Chesapeake Energy, operate the non-commercial wells. Calls and e-mails to both companies were not immediately returned.
The news is getting interesting as the popular press zeros in on what I called obvious a long time ago. I'm glad nobody listens to me. I have this vision of a bunch of fanatics pumping in the radioactive salt water, while earthquakes shake all around them. Meanwhile, on the outside of the fence, the anti-science crowd looks the other way, and wonders why God is punishing them. And the only way the pumpers will stop, is if a big earthquake destroys them! Of course, that is just my twisted mind....
The neat thing about my fault mechanism is that the pumping will get easier. Maybe the thrust fault will join with another pumper along the way, which again makes their life easier. As it grows, the fault could join all the mad pumpers! :)
According to a list published on the commission's website, there are currently 412 companies connected to the oil and gas industry in the state. But there are three companies digging for gas using seven active disposal wells in the moratorium area -- three commercial and four non-commercial, Shane Khoury, deputy director and general counsel for the commission, told FoxNews.com.
Southwestern Energy, which announced production in 2008 of more than 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the state's Fayetteville Shale, and Chesapeake Energy, operate the non-commercial wells. Calls and e-mails to both companies were not immediately returned.
The news is getting interesting as the popular press zeros in on what I called obvious a long time ago. I'm glad nobody listens to me. I have this vision of a bunch of fanatics pumping in the radioactive salt water, while earthquakes shake all around them. Meanwhile, on the outside of the fence, the anti-science crowd looks the other way, and wonders why God is punishing them. And the only way the pumpers will stop, is if a big earthquake destroys them! Of course, that is just my twisted mind....
The neat thing about my fault mechanism is that the pumping will get easier. Maybe the thrust fault will join with another pumper along the way, which again makes their life easier. As it grows, the fault could join all the mad pumpers! :)
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
New Zealand Earthquake - Strong Ground Motion
Reference
I've been waiting for these. For anywhere else in the world, we should not expect much damage for an M6.3. However, the general statement is that the buildings were fine, but were exposed to 2g acceleration, which is almost a world record, and allows one to throw up hands.
As we look at the records, we see that nearly all of them have permanent displacements. This throws out the use of response spectrum methods. Engineers should not quote those spectral accelerations.
This is the most reasonable record, with minimal permanent displacement in the N-S direction (middle). I'm going with 80 cm/s with the cleanest velocity pulse yet. I'm using this one for analysis.
The displacement is a very minimal cycle, and demolishes all assumptions about response spectra and sinusoids. Nevertheless, the engineers will stick with tradition.
This can also be used as an input for explicit analysis. 20 cm of displacement is more like the centre of the Chile earthquake (M8.8). In fact, as I think about it, these records are almost exact duplicates of the max. Chile records. Remember that at the Chile epicentre, all modern soft-story buildings (cheap condos) collapsed, and were slated for the dump, farther out in Santiago at 40 cm/s. The integrated records showed 3m of permanent displacement at the epicentre.
I still believe that the 80 cm/s for Christchurch was amplified by a factor of 10. Really, we only expect 10-20 cm/s for an M6.3, and these small things rarely go super-shear.
I've been waiting for these. For anywhere else in the world, we should not expect much damage for an M6.3. However, the general statement is that the buildings were fine, but were exposed to 2g acceleration, which is almost a world record, and allows one to throw up hands.
As we look at the records, we see that nearly all of them have permanent displacements. This throws out the use of response spectrum methods. Engineers should not quote those spectral accelerations.
This is the most reasonable record, with minimal permanent displacement in the N-S direction (middle). I'm going with 80 cm/s with the cleanest velocity pulse yet. I'm using this one for analysis.
The displacement is a very minimal cycle, and demolishes all assumptions about response spectra and sinusoids. Nevertheless, the engineers will stick with tradition.
This can also be used as an input for explicit analysis. 20 cm of displacement is more like the centre of the Chile earthquake (M8.8). In fact, as I think about it, these records are almost exact duplicates of the max. Chile records. Remember that at the Chile epicentre, all modern soft-story buildings (cheap condos) collapsed, and were slated for the dump, farther out in Santiago at 40 cm/s. The integrated records showed 3m of permanent displacement at the epicentre.
I still believe that the 80 cm/s for Christchurch was amplified by a factor of 10. Really, we only expect 10-20 cm/s for an M6.3, and these small things rarely go super-shear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)