![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mine Collapse: I call BS
Aug. 9th, 2007 11:25 amI'm sure by now that you've heard of the six miners trapped in the Utah coal mine. My dad was a coal miner, and this is the first generation that at least one male in my family wasn't, so this is kind of personal. I'm hoping and praying that they're alive, but I don't hold much hope this late in the game.
However, we're not getting the whole story here.
The mine operator, Robert E. Murray, is swearing up and down that an earthquake caused the collapse.
Of course, according to him, the collapse has nothing to do with the fact that they were pillar robbing- for those of you who don't know, pillar robbing is the last thing they do before they close a mine. Pillars of coal, which hold up the roof, are whittled down until it no longer becomes safe to be in the room, which they then seal off. This, naturally, is one of the most dangerous kinds of coal mining, and while I'm not certain of the statistics, I wouldn't be surprised if it results in the greatest number of underground mine casualties.
However, an earthquake.
Does he really think we're that frakking stupid?
A little primer in seismology- earthquakes happen when two bodies of rock move relative to each other along a fault line. We can get an idea of how these blocks of rock moved by looking at a distribution of strain in the crust. A strike-slip fault where the blocks move past one another will exert more force at the ends of the fault, while a dip-slip fault will exert more force on the sides. Either way, there's an anisotropy to the distribution of forces in an earthquake. On the other hand, when there's an explosion underground, the force is distributed in all directions pretty much equally. We've known this for years- it's how we knew that North Korea tested their bomb, instead of a really big earthquake.
Now, I'm not a seismologist- I haven't seen the seismogram from this "earthquake", and I probably wouldn't be able to correctly read it without help from my seismologist friends. But when the scientific community says it wasn't an earthquake, I'm inclined to believe them.
Murray stands to lose from this, so he's making up a story. He is hiding something. May it come to light very soon.
ETA- I just found out some other shitty things Murray has done. He assaulted an environmental activist in 2001. He sued the Akron Beacon Journal for libel after they painted him in a less-than-flattering light (which is VERY easy to do with this individual). And worst of all, he's anti-union- the same union that would have fought for the safeguards in the mine that would have prevented this tragedy.
This guy needs to be tarred and feathered yesterday. I hope that after this, some justice will make sure he loses the majority of his money and power, and is never in a position to hurt anyone again.
However, we're not getting the whole story here.
The mine operator, Robert E. Murray, is swearing up and down that an earthquake caused the collapse.
Of course, according to him, the collapse has nothing to do with the fact that they were pillar robbing- for those of you who don't know, pillar robbing is the last thing they do before they close a mine. Pillars of coal, which hold up the roof, are whittled down until it no longer becomes safe to be in the room, which they then seal off. This, naturally, is one of the most dangerous kinds of coal mining, and while I'm not certain of the statistics, I wouldn't be surprised if it results in the greatest number of underground mine casualties.
However, an earthquake.
Does he really think we're that frakking stupid?
A little primer in seismology- earthquakes happen when two bodies of rock move relative to each other along a fault line. We can get an idea of how these blocks of rock moved by looking at a distribution of strain in the crust. A strike-slip fault where the blocks move past one another will exert more force at the ends of the fault, while a dip-slip fault will exert more force on the sides. Either way, there's an anisotropy to the distribution of forces in an earthquake. On the other hand, when there's an explosion underground, the force is distributed in all directions pretty much equally. We've known this for years- it's how we knew that North Korea tested their bomb, instead of a really big earthquake.
Now, I'm not a seismologist- I haven't seen the seismogram from this "earthquake", and I probably wouldn't be able to correctly read it without help from my seismologist friends. But when the scientific community says it wasn't an earthquake, I'm inclined to believe them.
Murray stands to lose from this, so he's making up a story. He is hiding something. May it come to light very soon.
ETA- I just found out some other shitty things Murray has done. He assaulted an environmental activist in 2001. He sued the Akron Beacon Journal for libel after they painted him in a less-than-flattering light (which is VERY easy to do with this individual). And worst of all, he's anti-union- the same union that would have fought for the safeguards in the mine that would have prevented this tragedy.
This guy needs to be tarred and feathered yesterday. I hope that after this, some justice will make sure he loses the majority of his money and power, and is never in a position to hurt anyone again.
