Big Oil, Earthquakes, Tsunamis : Are they hiding something?
This is not meant to be hard science.... but a look at the coincidence of earthquakes around areas of oil exploration. Nothing more and nothing less. The media, scientists if they had the inclincation to the tell the truth about the subject would be the ones to do it. It seems that there might be some evidence that there is a connection of oil and mineral extraction to earthquakes.
CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKES 1769-1864
YEAR MG Location
1769 6.0 Los Angeles Basin
1800 6.5 San Diego region
1808 6.0 San Francisco region
1812 7.0 Wrightwood
1812 7.0 Santa Barbara Channel
1827 5.5 Los Angeles region
1836 6.75 Hayward Valley
1838 7.0 San Francisco Peninsula
1852 6.5 Volcano Lake, B.C. (This is an error: It is in Canada)
1855 6.0 Los Angeles region
1856 5.5 San Francisco Peninsula
1857 8.25 Great Fort Tejon earthquake
1858 6.25 San Jose region
1858 6.0 San Bernardino region
1860 6.5 Carson City, Nevada region
1861 5.75 San Ramon Valley
1862 6.0 San Diego region
1864 6.0 S. Santa Cruz Mountains
1864 5.75 E. of San Francisco Bay
1865 6.5 S. Santa Cruz Mountains
1866 6.0 W. San Joaquin Valley
1868 7.0 Hayward fault
1870 6.0 Los Gatos
1871 6.0 Cape Mendocino
1872 7.6 Owens Valley
1872 6.75 Owens Valley
1872 6.25 Owens Valley
1872 6.75 Owens Valley
1872 5.75 Imperial Valley (?)
1873 6.75 Crescent City
1875 6.0 Honey Lake
1875 6.25 Imperial Vly to Colorado R. delta
..
..
The list is from here
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/sca/ca_eqs.php
A few more earthquake lists and histories:
http://www.latimes.com/news/weather/la- ... .htmlstory
http://geology.com/earthquake/california.shtml
http://www.missiontour.org/related/earthquakes.htm
January 29, 1767 : Spanish King Charles III orders the Jesuits, who had established a chain of fifteen missions throughout Baja California forcibly expelled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Mi ... California
1769 : The first Franciscan Spanish mission setup camp in 1769 in San Diego. Recording of earthquakes begins with arrival of Spanish missions in California about 1769
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Mi ... California
http://www.sfmuseum.org/alm/quakes0.html
28 Jul 1769 : 6.0 Los Angeles Area Earthquake recorded
August 10, 1854 : U.S, Army first garrisoned at Fort Tejon
http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=585
Looking at the list of earthquakes above, the date that stands out is
1855. California has always been earthquake prone it seems. Between 1769 and 1855 there are only 8 major earthquakes recorded by the missionaries. But after 1855 the number of earthquakes makes a rapid rise. Did some earthquake recording technology get better? I don't know the exact answer but what interests me is the increase in resource extraction that began about the time of the California gold rush.
1849-1855 : Increase in Oil & Resource Extraction in California
The official history of California's oil exploration begins with the Pico Canyon oil field in 1876. But by 1855 "asphaltum" had been found in areas that would later be drilled for oil and interest grew in extracting it. The U.S. army in 1854 had already setup base at Fort Tejon 52 miles North of Pico canyone and was building
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_Canyon_Oilfield
1855 : General Andres Pico's oil explorations
"Pico's ties to California ran too deep for him to consider leaving. He retired to the 16,000-acre Rancho San Fernando, of which he had been the patron,
and started exploring nearby canyons. In 1855, he began hauling "asphaltum" out of the canyon that would bear his name."
http://www.scvhistory.com/mentryville/mstory.htm
"California oil was always a valued commodity. When the Spanish explorers landed in California in the 1500s, they found Indians gathering asphaltum (very thick oil) from natural seeps.... The explorers, in turn, used asphaltum to seal seams in their ships. Later settlers also used the thick asphaltum in many ways, including sealing the roofs of their houses."
ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/history ... _Calif.pdf
"Asphaltum" is oil and gas seeps
http://www.lovelab.id.ucsb.edu/chapt2.pdf
"Oil from a Humboldt County seep was sold in 1855, four years before Colonel Drake drilled America’s first oil well in Pennsylvania"
ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/history ... _Calif.pdf
This article below says a man named Ramon Perea first found asphaltum here in 1855:
http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/si ... 021704.htm
July 11th, 1855 : 6.0 Earthquake
http://www.missiontour.org/related/earthquakes.htm
Accounts from the Missions at San Benito and San Miguel can be found here and document the leadup to the July 11th 1855 earthquake.
http://projects.crustal.ucsb.edu/sb_eqs ... -1860.html
Jan. 9th 1857 : FORT TEJON, CALIFORNIA, records 7.9 Earthquake (location of US Army base)
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Fort-Tejon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Tejon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Tejon_earthquake
1876 : Pico Canyon Oilfield
Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oil Field, located about seven miles (11 km) west of Newhall, California,
was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States,[3][4][5][6] and is considered the
birthplace of California's oil industry.[7]
July 1876 : Drilling Begins at Well No.4 Pico Canyon
"Mentry began drilling Well No. 4 in July 1876..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_Canyon_Oilfield
September 26,1876 : Well No. 4 Pico Canyon strikes oil
"...and struck oil on September 26, 1876, at a depth of 370 feet (110 m); the well immediately began producing 25 barrels a day."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_Canyon_Oilfield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentryville
1849-1855 kicks off a time of major California resource extraction and development with as a byproduct it seems, an increase in the number of earthquakes. The missions as shown in the links above seem to have tracked earthquakes. And the record seems to show an increase right about 1855. That would seem to suggest a relation to resource extraction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gold_Rush
http://www.odac-info.org/node/2243
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2860
http://www.nyx.net/~dcypser/induceq/pis.html
Although American media will not touch the subject of earthquakes and oil drilling the media of other countries aren't so afraid to discuss it. India for one has a lot of people discussing the connection between earthquakes and oil extraction.
"Underwater oil and gas exploration, shrinking magma, magnetic stripping and polar reversal may be causing the sudden high intensity earthquakes in the same area, making Geologists scratch their heads to find out if the quake was an aftershock or a precursor to a coming larger one."
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/2097.asp
Google Map of Some of Areas Named Above
This map of locations mentioned does not deal with epicenters, just with areas that claimed to feel large earthquakes. So it isn't scientific and does not mean that the earthquakes mentioned were directly tied to the activities at the location mentioned. Just shows you the distances between the areas where some of the activities and earthquakes above were mentioned.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source= ... obispo,+CA
1989-1994 : California Oil Exploration and Earthquakes
"
No drilling to look for new deposits has been conducted since 1989 and the last new oil platform off the California coast was built in 1994."
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/06/44760
Dec. 7th, 1989 : California Panel Votes to Ban Sales of Offshore Oil Leases
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE6D71530F934A35751C1A96F948260
September 19th 1994 :Offshore drilling banned
"Oil companies may lose access to 350 million to 750 million barrels of oil buried beneath state lands offshore, if Gov. Pete Wilson signs a bill
which would ban off-shore drilling, a lobbyist for the oil industry told the Business Journal last week. "
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-16126617.html
September 1994 : California Legislature bans new oil leasing in state waters
"The California State Legislature passes, and Republican Governor Pete Wilson signs into law, a permanent ban on new offshore oil leasing in state waters."
http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0602/et0602s4.html
Two very interesting years, 1989 and 1994. Did anything occur in 1989 and 1994 in California that might effect the decision not to drill off the coasts anymore? Yes, before each of those bans there was a major California earthquake. Someone seems to understand the connection between oil exploration and earthquakes. These two dates seem to indicate there are those in power that believe that oil extraction causes earthquakes. If this is the case then it might backup the idea that there was a rapid increase starting around 1855 of big earthquakes in California because of major resource extraction.
October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loma_Prieta_earthquake
January 17th 1994 Northridge Earthquake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northridge_earthquake
2000 : BUSH 43 ELECTED, WORKS TO EXPANDS OIL EXPLORATION
CALIFORNIA
January 11th, 2002 :
"
The Bush administration urged a federal appeals court Thursday to overturn a court order halting proposed oil and natural gas exploration off California’s central coast. The government’s brief to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came in response to a federal judge’s June decision that blocked exploration off
San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s decision stopped attempts to build the
first new oil platforms off California’s coast since 1994. No drilling to explore for oil deposits has been conducted since 1989."
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issu ... xploration
November 4th, 2005 : Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger resists push for oil drilling in California.
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday told a key
Republican congressman that he opposes any effort to weaken the 24-year-old federal moratorium on new oil drilling off California’s coast. The governor, who has been heavily lobbied on this issue, weighed in a week before the House of Representatives was poised to vote on legislation
that could reopen coastal waters around the United States to oil and gas exploration"
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/04/local/me-drill4
June 30th, 2006 : Richard Pombo(co-author of "This Land Is Our Land" with WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah) continues to demand offshore drilling[/b]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13573049/
September 9, 2008 : Dems' offshore drilling plan comes with catch
"Just three years ago
Richard Pombo, the cowboy boot-wearing Tracy Republican lawmaker, faced an outcry from Democrats for pushing a bill to lift the 27-year-old ban on drilling off the East and West coasts and let states choose whether to allow oil rigs off their shores.... In a sign of how much the energy debate has shifted in an era of nearly $4-a-gallon gasoline, v
irtually the same proposal that Pombo floated will be introduced on the House floor this month - by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
September 9th, 2008 :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 12QE1Q.DTL
December 29, 2008 : Prior administration asks to open drilling off the coast of California:
"The
bans that protected both of the nation's coasts beginning in 1981, from California to the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic Coast and the Straits of Florida, ended this year when Congress let the moratorium lapse."
"
In California, any exploration and drilling would be close to shore, experts say. In contrast to the Gulf of Mexico, where drilling could occur in waters 10,000 feet deep, California's holdings lie on its narrow, shallow continental shelf, the underwater edge of land where creatures died over the millennia to produce the oil."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 14QMVE.DTL
Notice the lack of earthquake talk in the paragraph above.
THE FUTURE :YELLOWSTONE, ALASKA, OIL EXPLORATION, VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES
YELLOWSTONE
"The energy crush is bringing exploration
closer to Yellowstone National Park all the time."
http://yellowstoneparknews.blogspot.com ... idaho.html
Energy exploration may push Yellowstone’s charismatic megafauna over the edge
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/inde ... e_grizzly/
7 Earthquakes In Yellowstone:
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewt ... ellowstone
Are the earthquakes in Yellowstone unusual? Apparently the answer is yes.
"In April 2004 there was an increase in earthquake activity at Yellowstone National Park that drew interest from scientists and the public.... There are often 1 to 20 earthquakes recorded in Yellowstone National Park every day.
For a few days in April, however, the earthquake activity increased and 400 earthquakes were recorded over a three-day period."
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/publicati ... 4swarm.php
"Scientists are closely monitoring more than 250 small earthquakes that have occurred in Yellowstone National Park since Friday. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone.
But Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah, says it's very unusual to have so many over several days. "
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1
ALASKA
March 17th, 2005 : Senate OKs oil drilling in Alaska's ANWR
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/216352_anwr17.html
January 3, 2008, : Alaska oil exploration to begin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7169144.stm
Jul 13, 2008 : Alaska volcano erupts; island residents evacuated
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCr ... SN12382772
August 10, 2008 : Windfall tax lets Alaska rake in billions from Big Oil
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... tax07.html
January 29, 2009 : Alaskans Brace for Volcano to Blow
http://news.aol.com/article/volcano-eruption/322208
TSUNAMIS, DOLPHINS EARTHQUAKES AND MILITARY SONAR
There is the whole mess of Dolphin, Whale Beachings, military sonar, tsunamis and earthquakes. Will have to add that to this thread at a later time. But for now here is a link
Earthquake: Coincidence or a Corporate Oil Tragedy?
http://www.serendipity.li/more/limburg01.htm
December 26th, 2004 : Aceh Tsunami
This earthquake Tsunami combo killed 225,000 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_India ... earthquake
Aceh has also been undergoing a lot of oil exploration
http://acehnet.tripod.com/mobil.htm
I am not trying to say that Oil and Resource Extraction has a direct link to Earthquakes. A more accurate comment might be this :
Earthquakes and other geological disruptions seem to dramatically increase around areas of resource extraction and those engaged in it.