Earthquakes: Caused by Gorebal Warming? WTF?

Question

How can tectonic pates be effected by the rise in temparatures mythically caused by man?

Thectonic plates have been in place basically since creation, they shift irregardless to what is going on above them. I am no earthquake expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express Last Night.... (LOL!)

I learned in earth science class in like 5th grade that earthquakes are caused by the shifting of tectonic plates, therefore it is impossible the myth of gorebal climate change could cause the tectonic plates to shift.

Answer 1

Your answer is correct!!!

Answer 2

You're right about big earthquakes.

But small ones are happening in Greenland right now, due to global warming.  As heavy ice melts, the Earth "rebounds", causing small quakes.  Scientists can easily see them on their seismographs, in areas where the tectonic plates have no influence.  It's another of the many proofs that global warming is real, and mostly caused by us.

More here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment...

Answer 3

Technically,the plates will NOT move if the temp increases,but unless if its like some ENOURMOUS nuclear bomb,it might just move.Time for an experiment!

Answer 4

No one would attribute GW with drift or plate movement. However climate does effect the planet, and it's not a hard concept to follow. It's a major factor of the bulges at the equator and the concavity of the Arctic ice cap. The real attributes lay in the realm of expansion and contraction. Yes water even conforms to temperature fluctuations. The process is slow and not readily observed with the human eye. Yes gravity and the crust thickness are also factors.

Answer 5

Traditional earthquakes are mainly due to plate tektonics or volcanic processes.  Generally that's all happening too deep to be affected by small changes in temperature and any minor thermal expansion at the surface.

However, tremors up to magnitude 5.0 on the Richter scale can be caused by movement of glaciers, and those quakes are increasing in frequency:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...

Göran Ekström and colleagues from Harvard and Boston Universities have carried out a detailed analysis of long-period seismic data from about 100 seismometers distributed around the world (Ekström et al. 2003).  Using a computer-intensive procedure to optimize the alignment of signals, they have been able to narrow down the source locations of over 7000 seismic events.  Of these, all but 521 are interpreted to be long-period vibrations associated with known earthquakes, and of the 521 all but 71 are located in seismically active areas (eg. at plate boundaries).   46 of the 71 unexplained events are located in glaciated areas - most of them in Greenland (42), with a few in Antarctica (3) and Alaska (1).

A model of the sliding mechanism of the Alaska event shows that it is parallel to the interpreted direction of movement the Dall Glacier.  Similar models for some of the Greenland events, most of which are situated close the edge of the ice sheet, also show mechanisms that are consistent with presumed ice-movement directions.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn88...

Glacial earthquakes rock Greenland ice sheet

A rapid increase in “glacial earthquakes” – caused by sudden large movements of glaciers – over the past few years indicates that warmer temperatures will destroy the Greenland ice sheet faster than expected, a new study warns.

Surface meltwater is not dribbling away, as if from a giant ice block melting slowly, but is seeping through cracks to the bottom of the glacier. Once there it forms a layer that "helps lift the glacier up from the rock" so it flows faster to the sea, says seismologist Göran Ekström at Harvard University, US, who led the study.

He discovered the glacial quakes three years ago, when looking for unusual earthquakes, and traced them to slips within the ice. And the quakes can be substantial: a 10-metre slip of an ice slab roughly the size of Manhattan Island, and as tall as the Empire State building, causes a magnitude-5 quake on the Richter scale.

When the team analysed glacial seismic records back to 1993, they found a striking increase in the number of quakes recorded in recent years. All 136 of the best-documented slips were traced to glaciated valleys draining the main Greenland ice sheet. A handful of others occurred in Alaskan glaciers or on Antarctica.

Ekström reports that quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 – matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.

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As for earthquakes caused by tectonic plates, they won't be "caused" by global warming, but as the earth's surface warms 10 degrees F I don;t see how the earth's crust could help but expand (as the oceans do as they warm), magnifying the stresses that are already present in the system.

Answer 6

Land around the world is rebounding because the ice mass from the last ice age is gone.  Norway gains an inch a year because the land no longer needs to support the weight of 10 mile thick ice mass.  There are no earthquakes in Norway because of this effect.

Some say that the warming of the Earth's mantel causes the crust to expand.  This is their "proof" that man causes earthquakes, then they blame everything, even longer field goals in football on "global warming".

Answer 7

The rise in temperature is accentuated by man but plate tectonics is unaffected.

Answer 8

Just one of the many myths and superstitions developing as a result of the myth and misinformation of global waming / cooling / climate change.  I'm seeing some frightening patterns of thought combined with all this, hurracanes somehow connected with earthquakes.  Devices for your car that can ruin your engine, but hey, you're getting 120 miles per gallon now!  Turning on a light dumps 1,000 pounds of carbon into the air, hows that for a scare tactic.  

Or the wild fires in Florida blamed on global warming.  Actually is was an arsonist, now since arrested.

Answer 9

This is a bit logical phenomenon. It has got all relation. Due to global warming ice at the polar caps is melting rapidly and the weight over the Antarctic and other adjoining plates is shifting and therefore they are sliding rapidly past each other causing quakes. There's more explanation to this but only if you agree with this fact then you can understand the other part. If you want answers feel free to contact: [e-mail]