Underground Quartz Deposits May Help Predict Earthquakes

[FattyCatty]

At a time when earthquakes are on everyone's mind, a new study indicates that there may be help in predicting earthquakes, if the findings about quartz deposits prove valid. So maybe all the new-age weirdos were right about the importance of their crystals.
From Reuters.com:

(Reuters) - Underground quartz deposits worldwide may be behind earthquakes, mountain building and other continental tectonics, a discovery that may aid in predicting tremblers, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The findings by Utah State University geophysicist Anthony Lowry and a colleague at the University of London, to be published Thursday in the journal Nature, may solve a riddle of the ages about the formation and location of earthquake faults, mountains, valleys and plains.

"Certainly the question of why mountains occur where they do has been around since the dawn of time," Lowry told Reuters.

He and research partner Marta Perez-Gussinye examined temperature and gravity across the Western United States from a movable network of seismic instruments to describe the geological properties of the earth's crust.

The scientists discovered that quartz crystal deposits are found wherever mountains or fault lines occur in states like California, Idaho, Nevada and Utah.

The Utah State geoscientist said the breakthrough came after repeated testing revealed a correlation between quartz deposits and geologic events that was "completely eye-popping."
<snip>
Lowry already has launched a second, large-scale study in the Midwest, including the New Madrid Fault, to test the team's theories and is eyeing a separate project in the Appalachian Mountains.

From the abstract in Nature:

Here we show that the abundance of crustal quartz, the weakest mineral in continental rocks², may strongly condition continental temperature and deformation. We use EarthScope seismic receiver functions⁶, gravity and surface heat flow measurements⁷ to estimate thickness and seismic velocity ratio, vP/vS, of continental crust in the western United States. The ratio vP/vS is relatively insensitive to temperature but very sensitive to quartz abundance^{8, 9}. Our results demonstrate a surprising correlation of low crustal vP/vS with both higher lithospheric temperature and deformation of the Cordillera, the mountainous region of the western United States. The most plausible explanation for the relationship to temperature is a robust dynamical feedback, in which ductile strain first localizes in relatively weak, quartz-rich crust, and then initiates processes that promote advective warming, hydration and further weakening. The feedback mechanism proposed here would not only explain stationarity and spatial distributions of deformation, but also lend insight into the timing and distribution of thermal uplift¹⁰ and observations of deep-derived fluids in springs¹¹.

 

[Mr.D]

So maybe all the new-age weirdos were right about the importance of their crystals.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7338/full/nature09912.html

So what you're saying is that they've been on shaky ground since day one?

 

[FattyCatty]

So what you're saying is that they've been on shaky ground since day one?

Nah, just that I can't fault them for their insistence on vibrational properties and power of quartz to amplify.

 

[Mr.D]

Nah, just that I can't fault them for their insistence on vibrational properties and power of quartz to amplify.

I wonder if this will cause a rift amongst the new-agers.

 

[bokonon]

I haven't seen the Nature paper, but I seriously doubt the quartz connection will pan out. I know lots of places which are rich in quartz, but not known for earthquakes.

 

[FattyCatty]

I haven't seen the Nature paper, but I seriously doubt the quartz connection will pan out. I know lots of places which are rich in quartz, but not known for earthquakes.

They did say the author was going to do more studies, one already started in the midwest (including New Madrid), and another possible in the Appalachians. I don't know if that would be enough to confirm the findings (assuming the new studies agree with the authors' conclusions).

 

[volcano]

I haven't read the whole paper yet but I don't see anything here about predicting earthquakes-- just that earthquakes/faults/mountains (which are built by earthquakes/faults) tend to occur in regions with more quartz. But again, I haven't read the paper yet.

I haven't seen the Nature paper, but I seriously doubt the quartz connection will pan out. I know lots of places which are rich in quartz, but not known for earthquakes.

The presence of quartz isn't causative-- the mere presence of quartz won't cause earthquakes, obviously. You need to have stress, either through compression or tension, for earthquakes to occur. Think of an earthquake like a rupture in the crust-- it may not be visible at the surface, but somewhere in the crust the rock has broken. Some force has to make it break. This paper sounds like a discussion of where the break occurs.

As the quoted except says, quartz is a really weak mineral. So if there is a large deposit of quartz, and IF conditions are right for an earthquake, it seems logical that the fault would occur in quartz-rich regions.

But it's also worth pointing out that quartz often occurs in veins, where hot water flows through cracks in the rock and leaves quartz behind. This will also increase the local concentration of quartz but will occur after the fault has formed. I imagine that the authors controlled for this, though.

Looks like I really need to read this paper I'll add it to the stack...

 

[eh?]

a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link......a crust is only a strong as it's weakest component. And like volcano said, this doesn't sound causative of mountains and earthquakes. Reuters almost makes it sound like there's underground conclaves of quartz crystals plotting each shift of the continents. The article is worded to get eyeballs on it because of all this seismic buzz lately. Mr Lowry seems to have done some interesting quantitative research that has resulted in an interesting bit of evidence for the location of mountain ranges and faults, but Reuters, or Nature magazine have blown this up to have a human interest angle that's completely unrelated to the study. A new-ager could have cited this study as it may reinforce their tradition that quartz crystals (much different from what is found in quartz rich crust) have some sort of new age power. or whatever. damn hippies.

and dammit, now I want to read this article too....

Mr.D.....artful. More please?

 

[Dinwar]

As the quoted except says, quartz is a really weak mineral. So if there is a large deposit of quartz, and IF conditions are right for an earthquake, it seems logical that the fault would occur in quartz-rich regions.

This was my immediate thought (after "Seriously? wtf?!"). Of course, then the authors will have to explain why areas similarly rich in other minerals, particularly ones with clevage plains and which are foliated, don't show a similar tendency toward tectonic activity.