11/05/2026
New version:
Researchers have set the ground trembling in southern Switzerland, sparking thousands of tiny earthquakes in a controlled environment as they aim to uncover seismic insights that could help mitigate risks. "It was a success!" exclaimed Domenico Giardini, one of the lead researchers, while examining a crack in the rock wall of a narrow tunnel deep beneath the Swiss Alps. Clad in a bright orange jumpsuit and helmet, the geology professor from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) flicked on his headlamp for a closer look. "We had seismicity," he said with enthusiasm, explaining that their mission was "to understand what happens at depth when the Earth moves." Giardini stood in the BedrettoLab, carved out of a 5.2-kilometre (3.2-mile) ventilation tunnel leading to the Furka railway tunnel. Accessed by specially modified electric vehicles that glide through the damp darkness along concrete slabs over a muddy floor, this deep underground lab is the perfect spot for creating and studying earthquakes, according to Giardini. "It's ideal because we have a kilometre and a half of mountain above us... and we can closely observe the faults, how they shift, when they shift, and we can even make them shift ourselves," he shared with AFP. Typically, researchers looking to study earthquakes set up sensors near known faults and wait. In the BedrettoLab, however, they filled a pre-selected fault with sensors and other instruments, then aimed to trigger movement. For the experiment, called Fault Activation and Earthquake Rupture (FEAR-2), dozens of scientists from across Europe spent four days in late April injecting 750 cubic metres of water into boreholes drilled into the tunnel's rock walls, hoping to provoke a magnitude-1 earthquake. "We don't create a new fault... We just help it move," Giardini clarified. During the experiment, no one was in the tunnel for safety reasons, with everything being managed remotely from the ETH Zurich lab in northern Switzerland. ゚viralシfypシ゚viralシalシ #シ゚viralシfypシ゚viralシalシ
