Our continued empathy to the trapped Utah miners and their families. And our continued admiration for those working to try to reach them. It all brings back so vividly those long-ago days when men were trapped in the mine where my father was a mine captain and our house was turned upsidedown.
An ugly part of the story however is the scrapping over the cause of the earthquake. I quote Mineweb:
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Meanwhile, U.S. Geological Survey said the collapse at the Crandall Canyon mine caused the seismic event and that no earthquake occurred despite Murray Energy President and CEO Robert Murray’s insistence that an earthquake caused the mine collapse. Murray still insisted that he had proof that the event was an earthquake.
We have a similar story in the Rocky Mountain News:
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The University of Utah seismography station recorded seismic waves of 3.9 magnitude in the area at 2:48 a.m., with an epicenter about a mile below the Earth’s surface, at the time of the collapse. Experts initially said a quake triggered the cave-in, but now favor the theory that the force of the collapse caused the seismic waves. “The signals don’t look like what we usually see in a natural earthquake,” said Harley Benz, spokesman for the USGS Geologic Hazards Team, based in Golden. “Those alone are more characteristic of a collapse.” The seismograph registered just one event Monday. If the 3.9 magnitude disturbance that was recorded came from an earthquake, there was no separate event recorded to signal the collapse of the mine.
I am no expert in the difference between the wave forms of earthquakes caused by natural events and earthquakes induced by mine collapse. But from what I have read and what those I trust to know tell me, it is not all that difficult.
Somehow the protestations of Robert E. Murray sound more like King Canute than a prudent executive. This is the report I read:
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Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., part owner of the mine, insisted his miners did not cause the collapse. “This was caused by an earthquake, not something Murray Energy, not something Utah America Energy Inc., did,” Murray said. “It was a natural disaster. It was an earthquake.”
It is all very well to protest that the miners did not cause the collapse, but it is another to seek at so early a stage to place blame on mother nature. At any rate, if the quake was mine-induced, it was not the miners who caused it, it was the managers, owners, and engineers. Recall that the function of these upper level folk is to provide the systems and the safe conditions so that the miners can mine. You cannot blame the miner, or for that matter exonerate him, for conditions conducive to mine-induced seismicity. That falls squarely in the lap of the mine manager.
I recognize that it is never too early to begin the process of preparing for litigation. But seems to me that with the miners still trapped, it is unseemly early for the chairman to be trying to assign blame, or more precisely avoid blame. He should be getting things done to rescue the miners, not making premature pronouncement about things that can be settled later by valid scientific processes.
I mean, does it really matter at this stage what caused the earthquake? Unless of course the issue is that the mine conditions that induced seismicity are the same conditions that are now preventing rescuers from reaching those trapped.
So we keep reading the news and wondering.
And watch the USGS website.
