[Manslide]

So while giant underground blob of magma puzzles puzzles geologists and science in Ethiopia -- m.livescience.com/39724-afar-rift-deep-mantle-melt.html --, in US their poor "colleagues" continue injecting millions of gallons of sand mixed with chemical in water into the ground making a market of our planet welfare. Here is just another striking example and a certain evidence of the fact how little human beings actually know about the bowels of the earth and how at that thoughtlessly we dare to interfere in the tectonic structure of the Earth to get resources hazarding all the possible consequences. Should something else be added here if even in region mentioned in livescience article last summer our American energy corporations have already as well tested for shale gas extraction potential? You know, I'm sure the blob of magma been definitely found then by the explorers that in turn just decided not to report on it and to safe the potential of the region. People all over the planet should immediately stop fracking, US particularly!

[ROCKMAN]

I must say I've seen some truly absurd connections over the years between frac'ng and problems. But this one beats all of them combined. LOL. I'm not sure even The Onion would float this silliness out there. I suspect even diehard conspiracy buffs wouldn’t warm up to this. George Bush directing NASA to steer Katrina to New Orleans to punish them for not voting for him is a tad more believable. LOL. IMHO this is by far the most humorous post ever on this site.

BTW: oil/NG are not very compatible with magma so I'm pretty sure the Nig bad Oil companies won't be frac'ng around that blob.

[dinopello]

I thought the intent of the OP was to point out that there are surprises underground and we don't understand things completely.

The tell is when a fracking advocate claims how great our understanding and modeling of the subterranean is and therefore how safe it is, while at the same time persistently denying cimate change and attemping to shoot holes in climate science showing AGW because the climate is complex and the models not good enough.

[ROCKMAN]

dino - Ding ding ding...no straw man arguments allowed. LOL. There are many in the oil patch that don't consider frac'ng to present significant risks who also believe the man's activities are a primary factor in climate change. In fact, that describes the vast majority I personally know.

And here's where you really shoot yourself in the foot: there are dozens of aspects climate scientist readily admit they don't fully understand about the global weather system. By your logic that would make any of their prediction highly questionable also.

[sparky]

.
which it does , except that those scientists at least earn bonus point on credibility
anyway the fracking depth and the magma depth are quite different

[KaiserJeep]

I'd say the magma dome means nothing more significant than a new eruption of a mega-volcano.

Watch the NOVA program "Mystery of the Megavolcano" to understand what that means.

[ROCKMAN]

I don't think the effort was to link the magma dome to frac'ng but just making the illogical jump that if w don't clearly understand one geologic situation how can we profess to understand any geologic situation. If that logic is valid how can anyone defend any position on anything any physical reality because we don't fully understand everything about everything. As I implied this is "logic" not worthy of even a 5 you child.

There are valid areas of concerns about frac'ng. IMHO a post like this does more harm then good for folks opposed to frac'ng. Any foolish argument only weakens valid positions.

[dinopello]

I don't think the effort was to link the magma dome to frac'ng but just making the illogical jump that if w don't clearly understand one geologic situation how can we profess to understand any geologic situation. If that logic is valid how can anyone defend any position on anything any physical reality because we don't fully understand everything about everything. As I implied this is "logic" not worthy of even a 5 you child.

Plus you have to factor money into the logic, right ? It is much more lucrative to be confident that we understand impacts of frac'ing on (say) ground water and also be confident that we know very little about the effects of carbon in the atmosphere. Can I get a ding ding ding ! ?

[vision-master]

Expanding Earth.

[ROCKMAN]

dino - Ding, ding, ding!!! Valid point, buddy.

[efarmer]

I am a bit weak on Earth Science, but I have heard that Medical Research
now strongly suspects that white mice cause cancer.

[ROCKMAN]

efarmer – Cute. But cause and effect is where the oil patch and the public keep butting heads. We can drill a well and the land owner suddenly finds X wrong. Was X caused by the drilling or is it unrelated? That’s one of the big issues with frac’ng: Farmer A can show methane in his water well. Company B frac’d a well nearby. In many of the cases it was easily shown there was a long history of natural methane contamination in the area long before the first oil/NG was drilled. Much of PA has a long history of fresh water being contaminated with methane before any drilling was done in the state. But even if true that doesn’t necessarily mean Company B didn’t cause that particular problem. Same situation with a minor earth tremors: caused by frac’ng or just natural? Small earthquakes that can’t be felt happening all across the country. But put sensitive measuring devises around a well that was frac’d and those tremors might be recorded…whether they were caused by frac’ng or not.

This was a common problem when they studied the distribution of various cancers. Its call the cluster effect. The natural occurrence of any metric is seldom evenly distributed. There tends to be areas of higher concentrations just as a simple matter of statistical variation. The easy example is someone shooting a pistol at a blank wall. They aren’t a very good shot but a number of hits strike a relatively small area. Now draw a bull’s eye around that cluster of shots and it gives the appearance that they are a good marksman. Same with some cancer distributions: find an area with an abnormally high concentration and is it because something in that area is causing the spike or is it just that distribution phenomenon again? If you happen to live in such a cancer cluster area you might start looking for a cause. So there’s a nearby plant that uses a solvent in there process. A solvent known to be a carcinogen. So did the plant cause the concentration or is it just a statistical coincidence?

If you ever studied a civil trial over a rash of cancers in an area you’ll find this is often the focus of the arguments.

[dinopello]

If you ever studied a civil trial over a rash of cancers in an area you’ll find this is often the focus of the arguments.

It's very difficult to prove, especially against a well lawyered company.

We swear, nicotine is not addictive and there is no link between cigarettes and cancer...


The frac'ng thing is especially hard because we are interested not only in near-term acute effects but those that might not manifest for hundred years or more (or are we ?).

In any case, the money is too great and the near-term benefit to the general public is too high to expect that there will be any alteration in frac'ng plans regardless of what any science shows.

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr - Silly for sure but it turned into a healthy discussion about cause/effect and acceptable/unacceptable risks. Issues that I'm sure will grow bigger and bigger as we stumble down that PO path. Maybe the mods might want to rebrand the title to something more appropriate.