Whether it’s possible to prevent earthquakes profitably?

As you know, the so-called tectonic (seismic) areas are not necessarily associated with the presence of volcanoes. There are many places on Earth where there are no volcanoes or even mountain ranges, nevertheless, earthquakes occur there and are often extremely destructive.

They are caused by the mutual movement of continental plates floating in the seas of magma, which “hook” against each other with protrusions and when the movement of magma causes them to break these places of adhesion, an earthquake occurs. Like ice floes during an ice drift.

And the following thought occurred to me: Usually, in our daily practice, we often encounter such a problem of excessive friction – the engagement of objects and the lubricant placed between the rubbing surfaces reduces triboeffects many times over. So, shouldn’t we try to LUBRICATE the protrusions of the continental plates RUBBING AGAINST EACH OTHER and thereby make them slide over each other, rather than break the protruding irregularities with a sudden jump?

After all, the processes there and in our everyday life are similar! If we were micro-creatures living in a poorly lubricated ball bearing, we would also have frequent “bearing shakes”!

So, lubricate the edges of the continental plates (faults) rubbing against each other and thereby prevent or at least reduce earthquakes in these areas.

WITH WHAT AND HOW?

Drill deep wells ALONG the proposed fault and pump into them water from the seas, a slippery clay “solution” or oil (if available in excess).

Water will partially work as a lubricant, greatly reducing the friction of the plates, and at the same time partially DISSOLVE the protrusions (stressed parts of any parts usually dissolve in acids or alkalis better than non-stressed ones!). It is possible to enhance the process of dissolving the protrusions by feeding a “plus” into the wells from a constant voltage source and a “minus” into the environment. This is similar to electric geological exploration, but the currents in our case should be many orders of magnitude higher.

If the depth of the fault is in the geothermal zone, then both of the above processes will proceed more intensively due to heating.

but!

We also get self-sufficiency “for free”: Heated water vapor or easily vaporized oil fractions can be used in geothermal power plants above wells! So the maintenance of wells in working order is provided by a part of the electricity received!

By the way, antiseismic buildings can be made cheaper by building houses FLOATING like liners in artificial reservoirs. Then no earthquake will cause this liner house the slightest harm. At most, it will swing it a little. First of all, this can be applied to all kinds of critical structures, such as nuclear power plants, chemical plants, and others for which an earthquake can be fatally dangerous. If the country is by the sea or a large lake, then such dangerous structures should be built exactly like NUCLEAR SHIPS! Floating nuclear power plants anchored in a water port closed from the waves.

Frolicking with ideas…

30 VII 2023