Friday 20 August 2010

BP spill won't trigger an earthquake

We all know that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is a natural and economical catastrophe. We have seen the images of the well leaking barrels and barrels of oil. Birds, fishes and turtles oil-covered all along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Many people have been now educated about how a well is drilled, how production has evolved in the last decades reaching deeper and deeper fields.

But, what happens when somebody mixes reality with fiction? Oh, then we get a growing trend of people believing that BP's oils spill may trigger an earthquake... as far as in the New Madrid Fault Zone!!!

I really find funny this part of the article:

"Could this "oil volcano" cause an earthquake along the New Madrid fault line that is so powerful that it could bring about "the end of the world as we know it" for those living in the area?"

Of course. The planet will colapse over itself, forming a new variety of a black hole. Black, because it will be full of oil.


But, what really disturbs me (not really), is not knowing if the following is a real comment, or just an ironic joke...:

"wells there's a good chance that the planet needed the oil where it was to lubricate the planets tectonic plates..... so yes. or any fault line idk.."

[/ironic mode=]So that was all the secret! We are extracting the oil that should be in fault planes, hence causing earthquakes!![/ironic mode=off]

Seriously, anyone not properly formed in geology may believe this rubbish. And I don't think it is the fault of the "street person", which may read that in a bad newspaper or an ill-informed blog. The problem is people writing this stuff. It appears constantly, every time that an earthquake happens somewhere. "We are damaging the Earth, it is paying us back now...", "This earthquake was caused by a tectonic weapon"...

Tectonic weapons... uhm, material for another article. Thanks, Tesla...