Scientists at ETH Zurich university in Switzerland have deliberately induced around 8,000 seismic events deep underground in the Swiss Alps as part of an experiment called Fault Activation and Earthquake Rupture (FEAR-2).
The team injected 750,000 litres of water into the ground via two boreholes over approximately 50 hours at the BedrettoLab facility. The quakes were too small to be felt at the surface or cause damage, with magnitudes ranging from -5 to -0.14.
The researcher explained “While some seismic events occurred on the target fault zone, a large number of events took place on neighbouring geological structures activated by the fluid injection.”
Professor Domenico Giardini, one of the lead researchers, stated: “If we master how to produce quakes of a certain size, then we know how not to produce them.”
He also noted the advantages of the site: “It is perfect, because we have a kilometer and a half of mountain on top of us… and we can look very close at the faults, how they move, when they move, and we can make them move ourselves.”
He doesn’t seem all that worried about the mountains crumbling on top of him.
Hellbound and Down 