Pumping Water Underground For Lower May Have Triggered South Korean Quake
Recently South Korea had a massive destruction. According to the researchers, the injecting fluid into the ground for geothermal power generation may have caused the magnitude 5.5 earthquake. That happened on November 15, 2017. The liquid was pressurized into the underground by the power plant. Which could also be triggered a rupture along a nearby fault zone that was already stressed. Two new studies suggest?
So if it is confirmed that the plant is the main culprit the Pohang quake. Which injured 70 people and caused $50 million in damages. Would be the largest ever induced by enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS. This technology is a programme of high-pressure pumping of cold water into the ground to widen existing. Small fractures in the subsurface, creating paths for the water to circulate and be heated by the hot rock.
The plant then carries water and then converts the heat into the power.
Recently the researchers examined the local seismic network data for the locations and timing of the main earthquake. Six foreshocks and hundreds of aftershocks to determine whether the temblors might have been related to fluid injections at the Pohang plant. So all of this happened.
The six foreshocks and hundreds of aftershocks to determine whether the temblors might have been related to fluid injections at the Pohang plant. The report was made by geologist Kwang-Hee Kim of Pusan National University in South Korea and colleagues online April 26 in Science. The largest quake previously known to be triggered by EGS was a magnitude 3.4 temblor in Basel, Switzerland.
However, it is one of a series of quakes that ultimately led to the destroying of a geothermal power plant there. The scientists believe that the liquids which were injected they were little that caused the shaking. The total volume in the surface the quakes also grew a bit stronger.
