Hello there!
Since Japan and other Countries could be destroyed due to Nature, i wonder – we came pretty far with everything that is possible today.
I know in dangered areas the house are built to mostly withstand an earthquake and basically „move with the flow“ – at least thats how it looks.
But is there anything against the Cause itself?
If i remember correctly Earthquakes are the Result of the earth plates moving and causing tension. So i doubt there is anything you could do about that I dont actually know the cause of volcanos erupting, but is there anything against it to begin with?
The more i wrote this the more i feel stupid
Edit: as you can clearly tell english isnt my first language, so i have to correct some spelling errors
Comments
No. It’s like saying that humans could nuke hurricanes. The scale of these things is too massive for us to do anything about.
Not really. The forces involved are almost beyond comprehension – we’re talking about the forces that move the crust of the planet, driven by the mantle and the forces beneath. In other words we’d be trying to fight the whole planet. The entire energy output of the human race across history probably wouldn’t make the Earth shiver.
(xkcd definitely have covered some elements of this).
Volcano’s are mostly also the result of tectonic plates moving. There is no point in trying to plug a Vulcano, since the magma has already been pushing through the earths crust.
Theoretically, you might be able to drill vent holes that would prevent the buildup of pressure, but there is still the magma to deal with.
All in all; not really. There are several good geology canals on YT, like Shawn Wilsey ( not sure about the spelling).
Nothing at all e.g., the 2004 Andaman Indonesian earthquake energy release was in the order of 550 megatons of TNT
At this phase in our technological development, no there’s nothing we can do.
Eventually, maybe? But it’s speculative enough to be science fiction
> But is there anything against the Cause itself?
No.
Not really. Earthquake prone countries have adopted certain building techniques that allow buildings to easily withstand smaller earthquakes and generally remain intact and safe to anything up around ~7 on the Richter scale though even that is not a given because there are a lot more variables to earthquakes than just the intensity. And of course they have the appropriate infrastructure and emergency services to deal with a possible natural disaster, at least on paper.
But stuff like that is on a scale that we simply cannot do anything about.
Volcanoes are mainly caused by two things. One is the same as earthquakes: tectonic plates moving. When they move away from each other, cracks will be created and magna will come out (for example in Iceland), when they collide, pressure builds up certain places and will force magma up (for example as it does along west side of the pacific ocean). The other cause is what we call hotspots. Places underneath the crust that for same reason are warmer and have magma flowing up against the crust all the time. This magma will push through from time to time and create volcanoes (for example Hawaii).
So no, it’s not something we can do anything about. It’s just too big and strong.
No.
Like how you can build houses that resist tornado and hurricane UP to a certain level.
Because as said event has astronomical level of energy, the sheer kinetic force involved makes everything we do look like a joke.
Take Volcano eruption for example: You could try to drill multiple holes into the chasm to prevent pressure build up, but those holes needs to be BIG, oh yeah, and you need to do this to pre-active volcano, so you also need a time machine.
For already active ones with possibility of eruption, depressurization is one of the factors causing eruption. and because the temperature and characteristic of magma, any hole drilled will be ungodly difficult to keep open, because the very hot molten liquid will rush through the gap, sealing it (if it doesn’t just erupt).
Nothing really. There are attempts at better prediction models and understanding the underlying structure of the faults that cause earthquakes. There are also attempts to alleviate the pressures in some of those faults perhaps to have more frequent but smaller quakes which would be far less destructive.
Nonetheless, the forces involved in earthquakes are literally about continents moving. Humans can’t even move anything like a small mountain. We’re nowhere close to being able to affect a whole moving continent.
The same pretty much goes to things like hurricanes or typhoons. This is the result of heating and cooling of vast amounts of atmosphere by the sun. These weigh no less than mountains and the energy contained in one is more than humans harness in several years. It would be like trying to boil the ocean using a campfire.
We can. Not build or live in places where these occur.
Unlikely. Earthquakes are due to continent edges being rough and uneven, as they move they catch on each other. The forces driving continental drift don’t stop so the pressure just develops and accumulates at the point of “stuck” until something pops.
Most volcanoes are a consequence of the same forces – as plates move and shift the bottom bits sometimes melt and the melted-bits accumulate in bubbles way down deep. This is especially common where two plates are meeting head-on and one is being forced down under the other. That melted material from the edge of the “downward” plate has to go somewhere, and volcanoes are often the route of least-resistance when that pressure valve finally reaches its maximum and can’t hold it in anymore. Plugging one volcano in location A would just mean the pressure under the ground would try to open a different vent (volcano) in location B.
Maybe we could control the location and/or timing of an earthquake or volcano. Possibly, with better equipment for monitoring stress and pressure and identifying key spots to “hit”. It may be possible someday to relieve Earthquake stress through many small, “planned” quakes rather than waiting for a big quake to “pop”. And we may be able to help volcanoes vent in small bits rather than in one massive explosion. But both of these are many technological and scientific developments away from being realized. edit: but stop them entirely…no, not a chance.
“Doing something against the cause” would be impossible, because of the cause. Let’s look at earthquakes, shall we?
The earth’s surface is divided into gigantic plates made of solid rock, and these plates float on top of hot magma. These plates stretch across entire continents (and are a large part of why we have continents) and they’re all bumping around. That magma is bubbling a bit like a boiling pot of water as well, so that movement makes the plates move too. That motion is what causes earthquakes, when the plates bump and jostle one another.
These plates weigh almost unimaginable amounts. Even though they’re moving very slowly, they have colossal amounts of momentum. Asking if we can do anything about the cause of earthquakes is like asking if an ant can do anything about a freight train. The difference in size is so huge that all we can do is just be ready for when it happens.
Unfortunately, most of the time, there’s nothing we can do. In fact, the more dangerous it is, the less likely we can do anything about it!
The thing with earthquakes and volcanoes is, they build up pressure over time. That pressure builds for hundreds of years, or thousands of years, or maybe even longer. This is millions of tons of rock, pushing against other rock, building up strain, until finally something breaks and all that energy escapes VERY fast. For earthquakes, it’s tectonic plates trying to slide past each other. For volcanoes, it’s magma from inside the Earth pushing up against the rock above.
In order to change this, we would need to find ways to reduce the strain without just letting it all out really really fast, and we just…don’t have the ability to do that. Maybe, if you were extremely careful, you could find ways to allow a volcano to vent some of its internal pressure…but would it make a difference? At best, all you’ll do is delay the eruption a bit–and at worst, you could set it off right now in a much more dangerous way.
sacrifice virgins or strong warriors on Ziggurats?