Do Bombs Cause Earthquakes?
There was an earthquake in Afghanistan in March 2002. Coincidentally, there was a lot of bombing going on. Or was it coincidence? Many people ask, Do aerial bombardments cause quakes? Scientists immediately say No. First of all, they don’t like the word “cause.” An earthquake is the sudden release of strain energy in the Earth’s crust (see “Earthquakes in a Nutshell“), but strain builds up from several different causes: the movements of plate tectonics, the weight of sediments shifting from erosion or from deposition, changes in fluids underground, and more obscure factors like mineral phase changes in the mantle (see “Deep Earthquakes“). They all add up, and we can’t single out one of them as the cause. Scientists prefer to talk about what might trigger or induce an earthquake. Do Bombs Induce Quakes? OK, then, let’s ask again. Did the bombing induce the quake? From a century of experience,
