Gallic engineers have been experimenting with a technique that could redirect seismal energy away from structures such as city , dams , and nuclear power flora , sparing them from damage . It involve digging big , cylindric boreholes into the ground , form a defensive geometry of lacing - like arrays that , researchers hope , could bend seismal waves and thus make whole landscapes “ inconspicuous ” to earthquakes .
In fact , these arrays were pep up by the same eccentric of “ cloaking ” effects already used elsewhere to show “ how light can be manipulate tomake objects invisible , ” as David Biello reports inScientific American . These are referred to as “ metamaterials , ” and , thus , befittingly , the empty boreholes are identify as “ seismic metamaterials ” in a new paper published inPhysical Review Letters .
As Biello describes it , however , these boreholes would ask to be “ precisely tuned , ” almost like musical instruments — he specifically writes that a “ just tuned array of boreholes around a metropolis or a atomic power works ” would be want . This would be so that the nullity could “ vibrate at the frequencies characteristic of quakes , ” “ shield ” the protected orbit from harm . Physics World calls thistransformation seismology .
Interestingly , the deflected seismal energy would n’t just go away : another city , town , or empty landscape that would not antecedently have been affected could now very well live the brunt of the destruction .
There are some other implication here , then , including the likely motive to designate — or even plan — a kind of seismological forfeit zone where these quakes could be directed .
Like seismal weapon system , these drilled grids of empty space on the edge of the city would thus be used to air earthquakes toward other fix . conceive of them as magnifying lenses in the primer coat for redirecting seismal destruction .
While the inquiry is all very practical at the minute and still in its earlier stages , it ’s not hard to imagine a future urban landscape — perhaps Los Angeles in the class 2094 — perforated with a newfangled infrastructure of huge resonating nothingness , a form of tectonic sitar beneath the street that can bend ruinous earthquakes toward remote locations .
Perhaps led out into the desert along a farseeing necklace of thick - ground grid , seism pulsate outward into a national seismal forfeiture zone in the desert , an empty expanse of land where artworks have been installed to thrill with every lurch in the territory and multitude come to get the well-nigh - constant jounce and tide .
In fact , who cognise : maybe you could even pair this with fracking — which is , after all , notorious for setting off temblor drove , as in Oklahoma — and you could effectively instrumentalize seismal activity , seize , bend , and strategically reusing the effects of earthquake on demand . [ Physical Review LettersviaScientific AmericanandThe Verge ]
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