A study on Auckland’s volcanic activity, involving two new boreholes is planned to cost around $2million (Auckland Now).
That’s a heck of a lot of money for a couple of holes. Especially when the results won’t actually predict earthquakes but only “better understand the implications of a natural disaster”.
The implications of a natural disaster are pretty obvious: disastrous. I’m not sure how spending $2million is actually going to benefit anyone in this scenario. Scientists will obtain data which doesn’t actually predict anything, meanwhile the $2million could quite easily go into helping many other areas of Auckland society which sorely need it.
(Or perhaps help the residents of Christchurch still trying to recover from their natural disaster that noone predicted?)
Besides Auckland already has a network of early detection seismometers including six in existing boreholes. So along with all the volcanoes (last count 55), does it really need any more holes?
