Howard Hughes’ question lingers: Do nuclear tests cause quakes

Monday, June 29, 1998 | 11:25 a.m.

Ten underground nuclear tests conducted last month in India and Pakistan have renewed a debate about whether nuclear explosions can trigger earthquakes, a question that was raised by the late billionaire Howard Hughes 30 years ago in Las Vegas.

In memos from Hughes released last year by the U.S. Department of Energy, the brilliant billionaire urged the U.S. government to move nuclear weapons experiments at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to Alaska or central Nevada.

Ironically Hughes' executive aide John Meier pursued the quake/bomb link after the 1-megaton blast "Faultless" on Jan. 19, 1968. An earthquake in Winnemucca and a magnitude 6 temblor in Salt Lake City followed the underground nuclear blast.

The Atomic Energy Commission, now the DOE, denied that quakes were caused by any nuclear experiments.

The DOE has always insisted there is no cause-effect association between underground tests and earthquakes.

A University of New Brunswick in Canada geologist who conducted perhaps the most comprehensive study of nuclear explosions and earthquakes in 1989 discovered that from 1950 to 1988 the rate of earthquakes almost doubled.

Gary Whiteford examined all quakes above magnitude 5.8 on the Richter scale in the 20th century. During the 50 years before nuclear testing, big quakes occurred on average of 68 per year. From 1950 to 1988 the rate jumped to 127.

In addition to looking for big quakes, Whiteford compared "killer earthquakes" which claimed more than 1,000 lives. About 63 percent occurred within days of nuclear tests.

While Whiteford did not dismiss the quake rate as pure coincidence, most other geologists around the world do.

The Earth is struck with magnitude 7 quakes in different parts of the world on average once a month.

UNLV geology professor David Weide puts it this way: "Imagine an elephant and a fly lands on the elephant. Does the elephant feel the fly?"

The power unleashed by a nuclear blast is small compared to a quake, Weide said. The energy released by any earthquake from magnitude 3 to 5 is incredible, Weide said.

"If all the nuclear weapons on earth were to go off at the same time, it would only equal 5 percent of (the power of) an earthquake," he said.