Dams and Earthquakes
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 1:44 pm
Found this article on a website called probe international.
Here is a quick exert -
Here is a quick exert -
The world's earthquake experts have identified tectonic plate movements as the cause of this week's earthquake in southwestern China. But the question now is did the filling of the massive Three Gorges reservoir, which reaches the southeastern part of the Sichuan Basin, trigger seismic activity in what has always been an earthquake-prone region?
Engineers have already linked the massive weight of water behind the Three Gorges dam to increased seismic activity since its filling began in 2003.
"Whether reservoir-induced seismicity is behind this week's earthquake should be urgently investigated before the Three Gorges reservoir is filled to its maximum height," says Patricia Adams, executive director of Probe International, a Canadian group monitoring the Three Gorges dam since the 1980s.
A recent article in Scientific American, explained that the reservoir sits on two major faults: the Jiuwanxi and the Zigui–Badong. According to Fan Xiao, a geologist at the Bureau of Geological Exploration and Exploitation of Mineral Resources in Sichuan province, changing the water level will strain the fault lines.