----- Original Message -----
From: Charles Watson
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.quake-l
To: QUAKE-L@..................
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 9:32 PM
Subject: Induced quakes


One million children plan jump to create "quake"

LONDON, Sept 7 (Reuters) - One million British school children will jump up
and down simultaneously on Friday in a bid to create an earthquake and enter
the record books as the world's largest scientific experiment.
Thousands of schools around Britain have been asked to send children out
into  the playgrounds at 11 a.m (1000 GMT) to jump up and down for a minute
in the hope of creating a measurable quake.
"Will it make an impact on Britain's seismic network? Nobody knows -- that's
why we are doing the experiment," the organisers of The Giant Jump event,
held to mark the launch of the government's Science Year, said on its
website.
Scientists say a million children with an average weight of 50kg (7st 12 lb)
jumping 20 times in a minute would release two billion joules of energy and
trigger the equivalent of an earthquake measuring three on the Richter
scale.
"Britain is hit by magnitude three earthquakes all the time but you do not
ever notice it," Dr Ted Nield of the Geological Society of London told the
BBC.
"The only danger is that somebody injures themselves jumping."
But children surveyed have come up with some definite, if unlikely, views on
what the consequences of the giant jump will be.
While one fearful child thought the world would split in two, another
thought it would simply shake and then go out of its orbit.
A third came up with a more pragmatic, if less exciting, scenario.
"There will be lots of hospital visits from people with sprained ankles."
23:55 09-06-01

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