Depositing Carbon Under the Sea Could Minimize the Earthquake Risk, Researchers Say
According to the findings of a recent study conducted by Solid Carbon, the introduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) within ocean basalt has essentially little threat of causing seismic events such as earthquakes or slippage along fault lines. Are you serious about taking such an approach? It has the potential to be quite significant.
As a result, sophisticated computer modeling assisted scientists in gaining an understanding of how injecting carbon dioxide beneath the Cascadia Basin has a probability of less than one percent of producing a fault slide. Impressive!
Continue reading down below.
Breakthrough Research
The ambitious multinational research team known as Solid Carbon, which is being directed by Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), an initiative of the University of Victoria (UVic), is looking into ways to store carbon dioxide (CO2) permanently and securely below the ocean floor. What is their goal?
Researchers claim that the objective is to carefully extract carbon dioxide from the air and then inject it into porous basalt rock that is relatively fresh (roughly 15 million years old), such as the kind that may be found in the Cascadia Basin, which is located off the west side of Canada. After then, the carbon would engage in chemical reactions with the minerals, resulting in the formation of carbonate rock.
The modeling results show that the injection wouldn’t cause these faults to slip and, therefore, won’t cause seismic waves, explains geophysicist Eneanwan Ekpo Johnson.
Check out below a representation of the project:
According to researchers, this exceptionally low danger is maintained even with a continuous infusion of up to approximately two megatons of CO2 annually at the research location for a period of ten years. If the method were applied to more ocean basalt locations, it would be possible to safely inject around ten gigatons of CO2 per year by the year 2050. This would represent more than fifty percent of the atmospheric cuts that are required to make the world habitable for humanity.
Based on Martin Scherwath’s observations, a senior staff scientist with ONC who has expertise in seafloor dynamics and geological carbon storage, the findings are essential for providing support for the organization’s ongoing Solid Carbon research. Other significant discoveries made since the five-year project was kicked off in 2019 include the facts that the technology developed by Solid Carbon has the capacity to store as much as 250,000 gigatons of CO2 throughout the world and that the transformation of CO2 into the rock beneath the ocean floor will require approximately twenty-five years.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.
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