Subj: OCEAN DRILLING AND PAPUA, NEW GUINEA Date: 98-07-20 13:40:53 EDT From: Phikent I'm tossing this out to see what the engineers might think. Did the National Science Foundation drill a hole, cause a quake and generally botch it? http://members.aol.com/phikent/orbit/orbit.html http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/prosp/180_prs/180prosp.txt Kent Steadman OCEAN DRILLING AND PAPUA, NEW GUINEA, PROSPECTUS: FEB '98: Leg 180 will drill a transect of three sites just ahead of the spreading tip: ACE-9a on the down flexed northern margin; ACE-8a through the rift basin sediments, the low-angle normal fault zone, and into the footwall; and ACE-3c near the crest of the footwall fault block (Moresby Seamount). The primary objectives at these sites are (1) to characterize the composition and in situ properties (stress, permeability, temperature, pressure, physical properties, and fluid pressure) of an active low-angle normal fault zone to understand how such faults slip . . . (full article at URLs posted above). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: ORBIT: OCEAN DRILLING AND PAPUA, NEW GUINEA Date: 98-07-20 16:34:14 EDT From: bcornet@monmouth.com (Bruce Cornet) Reply-to: bcornet@monmouth.com To: Phikent@aol.com Dear Kent, I'm not a drilling engineer, but I've spent a lot of time around drilling rigs, and I can tell you confidently that it is highly unlikely that any well caused the quake and tidal wave. If it can be shown that the epicenter for the quake was near or at the drilling rig, then you might have reason for suspicion. You would need evidence that the drillers encountered unexpected gas and/or liquid pressures that caused a sudden and catastrophic blowout. Normally, wells today are pressure controlled with enormous blowout preventers and pipes that can withstand all historic pressures encountered in the hole. If a blowout did occur, that might change the fault equilibrium enough for something to shift, but that's a big maybe. A blowout would be on record with the drilling company. The only other way I can think of the well being responsible is if someone dropped a nuke down it. Thems the kinds of pressures needed to cause major earth movements and quakes on the scale that caused the tidal wave. Yours truly, Bruce Geologist and Paleontologist bcornet@monmouth.com http://www.OrionWorks.com/bcornet/ http://www.abcfield.force9.co.uk/bcornet/ http://www.planetarymysteries.com/genisis-geneset.html http://www.eagle-net.org/phikent/orbit/april/serpents.html 27 Tower Hill Ave. Red Bank, NJ 07701 (732) 747-9244 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 98-07-20 19:50:42 EDT From: Phikent To: bcornet@monmouth.com In a message dated 98-07-20 16:34:14 EDT, you write: << 's a big maybe. A blowout would be on record with the drilling company. The only other way I can think of the well being responsible is if someone dropped a nuke down it. Thems the kinds of pressures needed to cause major earth movements and quakes on the scale that caused the tidal wave. >> Thanks, this one I'm not sure of--was forwarded to me by a "concerned party." Would flooding the fault with seawater do anything--the vaseline effect? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 98-07-20 22:25:45 EDT From: bcornet@monmouth.com (Bruce Cornet) Reply-to: bcornet@monmouth.com To: Phikent@aol.com Dear Kent, What you are referring to is called "fracking". It is a common procedure designed to dilate an oil reservoir so that more oil comes out faster. That could have been done, but it would have been very expensive (millions of dollars), and would have required special high pressure equipment and a very big offshore rig (like those you see in the North Sea). I doubt that a drilling ship could do anything more than a small frack job, and that wouldn't have put enough fluid into the fault plane to cause what you are suggesting. I cannot think of a reason why anyone would inject a fault unless they wanted to trigger a fault movement - if possible. The fault indicated in your report may not be a big one. There are many faults in the subsurface. Why would they have picked that one? If it was a test, what were they testing? Only the government would perform such a test, not any oil company. There's no profit in it!!! Bruce ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: ORBIT: OCEAN DRILLING AND PAPUA, NEW GUINEA Date: 98-07-20 22:56:16 EDT From: Phikent To: bcornet@monmouth.com That's my problem here-- I don't totally understand the prospectus at: http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/prosp/180_prs/180prosp.txt Leg 180 will drill a transect of three sites just ahead of the spreading tip: ACE-9a on the down flexed northern margin; ACE-8a through the rift basin sediments, the low-angle normal fault zone, and into the footwall; and ACE-3c near the crest of the footwall fault block (Moresby Seamount). The primary objectives at these sites are (1) to characterize the composition and in situ properties (stress, permeability, temperature, pressure, physical properties, and fluid pressure) of an active low-angle normal fault zone to understand how such faults slip, and (2) to determine the vertical motion history of both the downflexed hanging wall and the unloaded footwall as local groundtruth for input into regional models to determine the timing and amount of extension prior to spreading initiation.** There seem to have been some heavy-hitters here: This publication was prepared by the Ocean Drilling Program, Texas A&M University, as an account of work performed under the international Ocean Drilling Program, which is managed by Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc., under contract with the National Science Foundation. Funding for the program is provided by the following agencies: Australia/Canada/Chinese Taipei/Korea Consortium for Ocean Drilling Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Federal Republic of Germany) Institut Français de Recherche pour l¹Exploitation de la Mer (France) Ocean Research Institute of the University of Tokyo (Japan) National Science Foundation (United States) Natural Environment Research Council (United Kingdom) European Science Foundation Consortium for the Ocean Drilling Program (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, andTurkey) So why were they boring away on a sensitive fault line? Would it require a nuke to spring the fault? Or was this the equivalent of jumping up and down on a cracked plank? Rumors whisper that Tesla made a quake in NY with a gizmo that fit in his pocket. Could some kind of cadence produced by the equipment have generated a standing wave-- woombah...WOOMBAH ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: ORBIT: OCEAN DRILLING AND PAPUA, NEW GUINEA Date: 98-07-21 06:40:32 EDT From: bcornet@monmouth.com (Bruce Cornet) Reply-to: bcornet@monmouth.com To: Phikent@aol.com Dear Kent, Despite the concerns you and others might have, I see nothing in the project description that is anything new. I have participated in similar projects having an academic objective, which were funded by various research institutes such as the ones mentioned below. Getting money to explore for knowledge as opposed to exploring for oil or gas is difficult, and as you can see from the list of contributors, the number indicates that none of them has deep pockets. The cost of drilling such research holes is tremendous. There is no indication from the project objectives that any fracking will be done. On the contrary, in order to determine stress, permeability, temperature, pressure, physical properties, and fluid pressure virgin information is required. The only tools and instruments that would go down such a hole are sensing devices designed to measure those properties. Any introduction of abnormal pressures into the hole would alter those measurements. There might have been a small pressure test to determine dynamic change, but it would not have involved introducing pressures enough to "jumping up and down on a cracked plank." Think of it as trying to move the mass of one of the twin towers in NYC. The terrorist bomb of 1993 couldn't do it, so why would you think that a puny drilling rig with pressure equipment could move mother earth? If the hanging wall was on the verge of jumping, and required a "trigger," that trigger would be located in an unknown position. There might be more than one area requiring simultaneous "triggering." A fault plane has enormous surface area. Once the stuck part of the fault had been located from geoseismic lines and extensive drilling, then perhaps something could be done to unstick it. But in my book that would be suicide, not knowing how much the fault would move, and what it would do to the drilling rig and equipment above the fault. Talk about throwing hundreds of millions of dollars down a hole! This research project was not designed to trigger any fault, only to study the history of fault movement. If fault movement was triggered, it would have been purely by accident, not malintent. Triggering that fault would be the last thing any competent driller or engineer or geologist would want to do. Hope this helps you to understand what may and may not have happened. The Pacific "Ring of Fire" (named for the concentration of faults and volcanoes around its rim) is already very active and becoming more active. I see no reason to point the finger at any human activity when there is much more that mother earth is doing than we could ever possibly do to create such a disaster as the recent New Guinea tidal wave. Hilo is on the verge of having part of that Hawaiian volcanoe collapse, and when it does, you could see a tidal wave the size of the one depicted in the movie Deep Impact form. It could wipe out most coastal cities around the Pacific basin! If at that time geologists were drilling small exploratory holes on Hilo to determine subsurface pressures and movement in hopes of forecasting when the collapse will occur, are we then going to blame them for the disaster? That would be like blaming a mosquito for a car accident :-) Bruce