Swiss scientists want to trigger a mini earthquake in an underground laboratory in Ticino. The ambition is to better understand how earthquakes occur, in order to improve the predictability of such events.
The outbreak of an earthquake of magnitude 1 is programmed for this winter or this spring under the Alps: hydraulic stimulation will be used to launch this non -destructive earthquake. Concretely, water will be injected at high pressure in a natural flaw, so as to move the stone blocks.
The goal is to move a rock of 50 meters by one millimeter. A work worthy of Hercules when you know that above the flaw is a kilometer of rocks.
With a magnitude of 1, the tremors cannot be felt by the human being who only perceives them from 2.5, recalled Tuesday the eth of Zurich (Read box).
A tiny risk of surface damage
The risk that such an earthquake produces artificially causes surface damage is tiny. The probability that this causes an earthquake of magnitude 4 is less than 1 in 10,000. “And even in this case, such an earthquake would not cause large destruction on the surface,” said Stefan Wiemer, who leads this project with three other research colleagues.
This experience is part of a wider research project. A new 120 -meter side tunnel has been pierced for this purpose at one kilometer under the Alps, in the heart of the Bedrettolab, an infrastructure of ETH Zurich. This took place in a former Bedretto site tunnel, which served during the construction of the base tunnel in La Furka.
This 120 -meter -long tunnel is located in parallel with a natural flaw. This situation allows scientists to study in detail how an earthquake occurs and spread along a flaw until its energy is exhausted.
The project FEAR – Fault activation Earthquake rupture, which means flaw activation and seismic rupture – is at the origin of this project.
Sjaq with ATS
