YHK - yet another hacker news clone

North Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakes

43 points rbanffy 1 hour ago 30 comments

https://archive.is/xjmvA

ranger_danger 56 minutes ago | parent

Endless captcha loop for me, is there an archive? (archive.ph etc. has the same issue for me)

ENOMEM 53 minutes ago | parent

sure, https://archive.is/xjmvA

ranger_danger 10 minutes ago | parent

That is the same site as archive.ph with the same issue :/

Also they are known for abusing javascript on client browsers to DDoS someone they didn't like.

ortusdux 53 minutes ago | parent

How long until someone attempts to diffuse a pent up fault line via nuclear geoengineering?

mc32 37 minutes ago | parent

Sounds like a plot for a Superhero movie ;)

diabeetusman 31 minutes ago | parent

Not exactly a superhero movie, but The Core (2003) is kinda related

whizzter 28 minutes ago | parent

Personally I was thinking of the Bond movie "A View To Kill" (the plot to destroy Silicon Valley through activating the San Andreas fault).

FuriouslyAdrift 29 minutes ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1978_film)

sehugg 28 minutes ago | parent

Dibs on Otisburg.

slater 33 minutes ago | parent

Project Plowshare says hello:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare

onion2k 32 minutes ago | parent

It's been theorized and allegedly attempted - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectonic_weapon

metalman 31 minutes ago | parent

Never, fer get it, in a word, insurance.

rtkwe 28 minutes ago | parent

The issue on real faults is they span massive areas. The San Andreas fault system spans basically the entire coast of California.

Even if we could identify the right points there's a big liability shift both legal and political between doing nothing and intentionally setting off an earthquake that would be hard to predict the size of. It's part of why proscribed burns fell out of favor, it's way easier to do nothing and blame nature than defending damage caused by intentional acts. It gets into messy areas where it's hard to convince people that the damage was lesser than it otherwise would have been in the future.

WarmWash 17 minutes ago | parent

>It gets into messy areas where it's hard to convince people that the damage was lesser than it otherwise would have been in the future.

Morbidly adjacent, the US is still getting dragged over the coals for using nukes on Japan rather than a ground invasion.

christina97 16 minutes ago | parent

If they can’t build high speed rail along the corridor then surely they cannot geo engineer it either!

make3 6 minutes ago | parent

Imagine if they trigger the California Big One and all of LA, San Diego and the SF Bay (and innumerable towns) are swallowed "because of man-made actions", I wouldn't want to be the Governor or President to approve that one lol

margalabargala 36 minutes ago | parent

Could this be considered a good thing?

The energy being released in these many tiny earthquakes was always going to exist in this location. Much better to release it slowly via thousands of tiny earthquakes than all at once. Better to have 10k magnitude 3 quakes than one magnitude 7.

andy_ppp 33 minutes ago | parent

It can go either way, you might get a relief of pressure or you might get an increased destabilisation in the region.

skeptic_ai 28 minutes ago | parent

There isA study about fire fighting. If you shit down every fire quickly then eventually you’ll have a major black swan. If you let fires burn a bit more then you’ll avoid black swan effect that burns down everything

dataflow 19 minutes ago | parent

Have you considered logarithms?

ImJamal 13 minutes ago | parent

Are fires and earthquakes the same?

booi 24 minutes ago | parent

It's logarithmic so you'd need more like 30,000 magnitude 3 earthquakes to equal the energy of a magnitude 7. I don't think it's clear this is better. You can also make the argument that this may trigger the large earthquake that might not have happened for a long time.

elictronic 28 minutes ago | parent

This article does a very poor job of differentiating earthquakes people feel and care about versus magnitude 2 quakes that are like your neighbor dropping a book upstairs.

RobotToaster 17 minutes ago | parent

Makes me think of the fact that the UK officially has over 300 earthquakes per year, but any you would actually feel are unheard of.

jdw64 21 minutes ago | parent

So does that mean the Korean Peninsula is no longer a geologically safe region from earthquakes going forward? That's scary.

eu-tech-tak 7 minutes ago | parent

There have always been earthquakes in Korea. They are just typically quite weak. Though the south region that is closer to Japan has experienced some intense ones, but nothing like the massive ones they have in Japan.

trumbitta2 17 minutes ago | parent

Basically, they gave their land Atrial Fibrillation through strong extrasystoles.

SoftTalker 5 minutes ago | parent

It isn't geological destabilization. They've awakened Godzilla.