Boy this thread turned a different corner.
First, you can't prove a negative. Prove there isn't an "earthquake weapon". You can say how difficult it might be, and what it would take to do it, but you can't prove it doesn't exist....................just not very like that it does. Hey, lets toss a bone to the conspiricy theorists.
Second, I would hope a country that was smart enough to develop an "earthquake weapon" would be smart enough to test it somewhere where a) the American People wouldn't follow up with millions and millions in donations in an economy that needs that money here not counting the tax payer dollars on top or b) there was some strategic value for the American People, i.e. as suggested Terrorist Hideouts and such.
It seems to me that the Bikini Atol was cleared of civilians prior to the testing of Nuclear Weapons..............of course hard to miss a 10 mile high mushroom cloud. "Oh that's just a big BBQ party we were throwing. Sorry we forgot to invite you".
But to put it in perspective, the TNT equivalent:
Let's take a look at the seismic wave energy yielded by our two examples, in comparison to that of a number of earthquakes and other phenomena. For this we'll use a larger unit of energy, the seismic energy yield of quantities of the explosive TNT (We assume one ounce of TNT exploded below ground yields 640 million ergs of seismic wave energy):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richter TNT for Seismic Example
Magnitude Energy Yield (approximate)
-1.5 6 ounces Breaking a rock on a lab table
1.0 30 pounds Large Blast at a Construction Site
1.5 320 pounds
2.0 1 ton Large Quarry or Mine Blast
2.5 4.6 tons
3.0 29 tons
3.5 73 tons
4.0 1,000 tons Small Nuclear Weapon
4.5 5,100 tons Average Tornado (total energy)
5.0 32,000 tons
5.5 80,000 tons Little Skull Mtn., NV Quake, 1992
6.0 1 million tons Double Spring Flat, NV Quake, 1994
6.5 5 million tons Northridge, CA Quake, 1994
7.0 32 million tons Hyogo-Ken Nanbu, Japan Quake, 1995;
Largest Thermonuclear Weapon
7.5 160 million tons Landers, CA Quake, 1992
8.0 1 billion tons San Francisco, CA Quake, 1906
8.5 5 billion tons Anchorage, AK Quake, 1964
9.0 32 billion tons Chilean Quake, 1960
10.0 1 trillion tons (San-Andreas type fault circling Earth)
12.0 160 trillion tons (Fault Earth in half through center,
OR Earth's daily receipt of solar energy)