Earthquake for Utah..........I think

Ok.....................so the mountains are stacked with tons of snow.........not melted as of yet. Its been raining for days and we are having flood alerts.........rivers and streams overflowing everywhere........So much water, so much weight...

Yes we have been having a drought, and this water is nice, but to much of a good thing is not any better. WHERE is all this water supposed to go to? I am sure the ground will soak up as much as it can, but we are ALLREADY at flood stage. This rain is helping to melt the snowpack to fast....emergency flood warnings allready blaring on the television everyday now........thunder clouds looming and booming....

Salt Lake City is on the Wasatch front faultline.......in the years I have lived here I have felt a couple 'little shakers'. The evidence is abundant that these new mountains here are the result of vilolent upheavel.
All this water weight........ and Salt Lake truly IS DUE a serious shaker. Maybe all this water in the ground will shift things enough to set off a major plate shift for the entire area?

I am PREDICTING that if this flooding issue gets any worse we may have an eminent earthquake, and that will give us a whole lot MORE to worry about than sandbagging.

Surface water weight is well distributed and has virtually no impact on seismic activity. Rest easy, well, except for that whole flooding thing.

What about the lubrication issue of stressed plates?? Much WET sand and dirt? sloshy slosh slosh.....

Lube em all up I bet they move with MORE ease......in my way of thinking.....

Quakes, big ones, tectonic ones, happen far below the water table. Even undersea quakes like the one that caused the tsunami 5 months ago are only slightly effected by the water above them. Also, even rain fall like that of the rain forest (6+ feet a year) rarely makes it deep into the ground. Evaporation and absorbtion take care of almost all of it.

There may be a feelable (is that a word?) earthquake (3.5-5.0) in the very near future in Utah, but I'm not sure about anything higher. Utah has been active with alot of little ones in the past couple of months.

Originally posted by ThatsJustWeird
Utah has been active with alot of little ones in the past couple of months.

I have been feeling them!....................

ACK ACK ACK!