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2.5 Mile Deep Hole Drilled Into San Andreas Fault

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Oct 04, 2007 08:43 PM
from the heart-of-the-matter dept.
News Science
iandoh writes "Cool research: Geologists at Stanford University and the US Geological Survey have drilled a 2.5 mile deep borehole into the San Andreas fault. They've extracted over one ton of rock from 2 miles down, and they'll be installing sensors down the length of the borehole."
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Submission: 2.5 mile borehole drilled into San Andreas Fault by iandoh (1151627)
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  • Lex Luthor is Pleased (Score:5, Funny)

    by hedgemage (934558) on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:45PM (#20861753)
    Oh, sure, just do his work for him. Why not install some nuclear warheads down there while you're at it.

  • Only 2.5 miles? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:47PM (#20861771) Homepage Journal
    The fault is between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, both of which IIRC are more than 50 miles thick. Why are we looking at only the upper 5%? ( Modern oil wells are drilled as deep as 6 miles or more now. )

    • Re:Only 2.5 miles? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Protonk (599901) on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:57PM (#20861877) Homepage
      Seems deeper than the average depth [doe.gov] of most oil and gas wells. Were you thinking of the depth of wells on the ocean floor from sea level?

      It does seem to be less than the record [findarticles.com] there. But we can hardly fualt (har har) the team for not digging the full 50 miles to the asthenosphere. :)

      • Re:Only 2.5 miles? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Thursday October 04 2007, @09:45PM (#20862311) Homepage Journal
        A quick google revealed the following:

        The deepest oil well penetrates a mere six miles (ten kilometers) into the crust (the center of the Earth is about 4,000 miles [6,000 kilometers] deeper). Russian scientists dug the deepest hole on the planet in Siberia, but bottomed out at about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) below the surface. The Mohole project, a 1950s-era U.S. plan, called for drilling a hole 25 miles (40 kilometers) down to the Mohorovicic discontinuity, the boundary between the hard rocks of the crust and the gooey mantle. Sadly, the only discontinuity Mohole ever encountered involved government funding.
        It gets harder and harder to drill deep into the Earth because rocks get softer and softer. Brittle at the surface, rocks become plastic at depth, and the pressure caused by the weight of the overlaying crust--about 52,800 pounds per square inch (3,700 kilograms per square centimeter) at a depth of ten miles (16 kilometers), says drilling consultant William Maurer--collapses deep wells, making further drilling impossible.

    • Re:Only 2.5 miles? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tyrione (134248) on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:58PM (#20861885) Homepage

      Modern oil rigs don't drill into one of the world's largest fault lines. This depth will give a very broad understanding, topologically the distribution of vibration analysis, fracture mechanics, etc., etc.

      Models will be developed to study and help with how the Earth expands and contracts.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by UbuntuDupe (970646)
        Heh, if an oil company *did* dig this deep into the San Andreas Fault, I'm *sure* they would be applauded for the scientific discovery they've facilitated...
    • We aren't drilling 6 miles into the fault because any oil that might have been in there would have already oozed out onto the surface.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by skelly33 (891182)
      Last summer I took a guided tour down into a hard-rock mine shaft several miles deep here in California. One of the questions that was asked was what happens if there is an earthquake and people are in the mine. The answer surprised me: they can't feel earthquakes down there, so the effect is nil.

      Apparently, we were told, the destructive force of earthquakes is carried along the upper couple hundred feet of the surface. I am reminded of a body of water that has waves and turmoil on the surface but which i

      • Re:Only 2.5 miles? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Thursday October 04 2007, @11:09PM (#20863037) Homepage Journal
        I suspect that they were lying to you to prevent panic. Mines are a favored place to study earthquakes. Indeed, being in a mine probably gets you closer to the epicenter, as most eathquakes are centered miles below ground.

        from iopd.og:

        Hundreds to thousands of small to moderate earthquakes per day are recorded in a typical deep mine; the strongest may reach an intensity of magnitude 5. Given that many of these earthquakes are controlled directly by the mining activity, their location, timing, and magnitude can be forecast, and instruments can be installed at sites where earthquakes of interest are predicted to occur. The mine infrastructure provides access to the earthquakes' source region and allows three-dimensional mapping of the fault zone. It also allows installation of a three-dimensional array of instruments 1-100 m from an anticipated hypocenter to monitor fault activity before, during, and after an earthquake. Most expected earthquakes exhibit a moment-magnitude range (-2 to 4) that bridges the scale gap between laboratory experiments and tectonic earthquakes in the crust. The mine infrastructure provides an opportunity to investigate the effects of fracturing during earthquakes on fault fluid, gas chemistry, and microbiological communities. These promising conditions have led to the building of an earthquake laboratory in the TauTona gold mine in January 2005 as part of the DAFSAM-NELSAM project
        From the Southern California Earthquake Center:

        Northridge earthquake had a hypocentral depth of 18 kilometers (11 miles), deep for a California earthquake, but considered shallow compared to other regions.
        ( In California even the earthquakes are shallow. )

        An interesting map is at http://seismo.berkeley.edu/istat/ex_depth_plot/ [berkeley.edu]

        • Re:Only 2.5 miles? (Score:4, Informative)

          by E++99 (880734) on Friday October 05 2007, @12:16AM (#20863605) Homepage

          I suspect that they were lying to you to prevent panic. Mines are a favored place to study earthquakes. Indeed, being in a mine probably gets you closer to the epicenter, as most eathquakes are centered miles below ground.

          Yes, being a couple km down gets you probably closer to the epicenter. But since the weight pressure on the rock increases linearly with depth, it is reasonable to think that the movement in earthquakes decreases linearly with depth, until it reaches whatever movement was at the epicenter.

          Imagine if you took a large compression spring, held it vertically from the bottom, placing a rock on top. Any sudden movement you make with your hand (the epicenter), will result in an amplified oscillation of the rock (the surface), with linearly smaller movements along the spring. IANA earthquakeologist, but it seems to me like an roughly appropriate model.

    • Re:Only 2.5 miles? (Score:5, Funny)

      by doktorjayd (469473) on Thursday October 04 2007, @11:00PM (#20862963) Homepage Journal
      Modern oil wells are drilled as deep as 6 miles or more now.

      heh,

      and modern measures are in metric.

  • Don't let them fool you! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Black Parrot (19622) on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:47PM (#20861775)
    It's probably the CIA trying to recover a lost Soviet rock diver.
  • Let me tell you something. After digging that hole I am ready for a six-pack. And I wish they would have thrown in a pair of gloves, cuz I gots some serious blisters.

  • faulty logic. (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 (568564) on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:56PM (#20861863) Homepage
    They've extracted over one ton of rock from 2 miles down, and they'll be installing sensors down the length of the borehole.

    I wouldn't want to be the guy who's in charge of monitoring sensory data from something called "the bore hole". that sounds like a really tedious job.
    • I wouldn't want to be the guy who's in charge of monitoring sensory data from something called "the bore hole". that sounds like a really tedious job.

      Better that than "the boar hole" ... those things can be really dangerous when you piss them off.

  • About time (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xeth (614132) on Thursday October 04 2007, @08:59PM (#20861897) Journal
    I feel our economy will be well served by the extra 6 energy.
    • Damn, beat me to it. I'll spare y'all the obligatory joke about mindworm attacks.
    • Energy? You build the boreholes for the MINERALS, the energy is just a side benefit!

      • Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Xeth (614132) on Thursday October 04 2007, @10:23PM (#20862643) Journal
        In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (a spiritual branch from the Civilization series, which I consider better than any of the Civ proper games that followed it), thermal boreholes are terrain improvements that provide +6 energy and minerals (a great deal by the game's standards).
  • They should dump a few tons of super glue down there. That'll fix her.

  • talc as a lubricant (Score:5, Insightful)

    by khallow (566160) on Thursday October 04 2007, @09:08PM (#20861957)

    They drilled in a part of the San Andreas fault that creeps and doesn't generate big earthquakes. My take is that they're looking for a lubricant, something that allows the fault to slide. Another possibility would be merely that the fault doesn't have bends or splits in it unlike the faulting at the south end of the San Francisco Bay. The San Andreas fault runs along a chain of mountains south of Silicon Valley and then north through San Francisco, following the coast thereafter, while the Haywood fault runs along the base of mountains east of the Bay area from Milpitas to north of Oakland.

    If a lubricant is responsible for the fault creep, there are apparently several possibilities: water, serpentine [wikipedia.org] (which can be formed by weathering or metamorphization of several minerals including olivene/peridot), or talc (formed by serpentine exposed to water). If you have talc, you probably have the other two as well. Serpentine is a bit harder than talc (the latter is soft enough to easily scratch with a fingernail), but both deform easily under pressure. I seem to recall cases where serpentine has "bubbled up" over millions of years through denser rock, acting as a very slow moving fluid.

    As I see it, if we can understand how to lubricate faults, then it is possible to not just trigger faults, but also to ease pressure on a fault. Maybe the cost of the materials will make it infeasible, but we can consider it now.

    • Re:talc as a lubricant (Score:5, Funny)

      by dustwun (662589) on Thursday October 04 2007, @09:17PM (#20862069) Homepage
      Does a reply to this involving 'Lubing the bore hole" get modded as funny, or troll?.. you be the judge....

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dodongo (412749)

      while the Haywood fault runs along the base of mountains east of the Bay area from Milpitas to north of Oakland

      It's called the Hayward fault, and it experiences plenty of creep all along the East Bay. The last quake greater than 4 that happened on it was basically across the street from my apartment. Trust, it's moving, and generally nonviolently (though noticeably at times). In fact, it runs through the middle of Memorial Stadium [wikipedia.org] in Berkeley, which is built in two halves that have crept about a foot and

  • Can someone please explain how to unlock this feature ? Is it similar to the Hot Coffee mod ? Where can I download it ? I've been playing San Andreas for years but have never encountered any kind of drilling mission or mod.

  • Dear God, No! (Score:3, Funny)

    by cmcguffin (156798) on Thursday October 04 2007, @09:22PM (#20862115)
    Keep the Mole Men down there where they belong!

  • 2.5 miles down? (Score:3, Funny)

    by jollyreaper (513215) on Thursday October 04 2007, @09:56PM (#20862403)
    No, thank you. I'm not checking there for a hidden package.

  • Silica Gel reducing friction in fault zones? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Diamonddavej (851495) on Thursday October 04 2007, @09:57PM (#20862413)
    My favored culprit for drastic friction reduction during faulting is lubricating Silica Gel; finely crushed quartz in the active fault zone reacts with water forming fluidic silica gel. There is excellent laboratory evidence of silica gel lubrication in simulated fault zones (see Mineral Gel May Reduce Rock Friction to Zero During Earthquakes, http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100325 [nsf.gov]. All that is needed is field evidence, and I think I have it.

  • Brilliant (Score:3, Funny)

    by Whiteox (919863) <htcstech@@@gmail...com> on Friday October 05 2007, @04:34AM (#20865079) Journal
    Idiots!
    What a dumb move.
    Geophysicist Nerd 1: "Hey let's drill a hole 2.5 miles into a known fault!"
    Geophysicist Nerd 2: "OK! Let's do it."
    drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill drill
    Nerd 2: "Now what?"
    Nerd 1: "Ummm... How about we put some sensors down there?"
    Nerd 2: "Hey! Why not!!!"
    Nerd 1: "Errmmm... Shit! We've only got 1000ft of wire!"
    Nerd 2: "Damn!"
    .
    .
    "Hey! What's that really hot red stuff bubbling out of the hole?"

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      My company (we do geological services) covered that rig when they started drilling. They were drilling outside of Parkfield, CA where there was a fault lock. Approx every 30 years there, an earthquake about Magnitude 6-7 happened. I believe 2004 was 32 years since the last quake. I know Stanford was hoping to put some geophones down there to see what kind of readings they could get when the quake went off.

      I was only down there for a week, but I was talking to the person who was there to finish the job. She
      • Someone please mark parent as flamebait.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            I was born and raised in the usa. I see where your comment is coming from but it's way late. Western influence spread like a disease (and it is) across the face of the planet long ago. Even if all of the usa was completely destroyed and everyone inside her boarders killed it wouldn't make much of a difference, the materialism and hatered we have created as idols are already bowed down to by people all across the globe.

            You don't have to look at it like that though- even though the usa contributed to this sad
          • And if you said what you said about most other countries, you'd probably get modded flamebait. Double standards are lame.

            I honestly don't know if I find the joke funny or offensive, but I do think that the same standard should be applied to all jokes in that vein. Then again, double standards for what people say are a problem of society in general, not just slashdot moderation.

      • Hopefully the United States.

        That would be cool. We Yanks could gather 'round the edge of our continent and piss on the rest of you from low earth orbit. So, instead of bitching about 50 million Republicans pissing on the world in some figurative sense, you would get splashed in the face by the real deal!
      • Like the Bugs Bunny episode where he saws Florida off the U.S. and lets it float away because he's pissed about the two cent fine for hunting rabbits out of season.

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