Damage caused by the Narada drill near San Francisco?

[Search4]

So the Narada has a super-weapon-drill that is capable of reaching a planet's core. When used at Vulcan, it seemed to reach the "core" in a relatively short time. If Vulcan is something like the size of earth, with a radius of 4000 miles, it might drill down at the rate of something like 100 miles per minute (taking 30-40 minutes to reach the "core", which needn't be the exact center of the planet).

The drill was activated adjacent to San Francisco and was operational for at least several minutes, from shortly after Kirk and Spock beamed over to when it was destroyed. I'd guess there is a 100-400 mile shaft left over, created by a superhot destroying beam.

What would the effect of that shaft be on the nearby city? Its hard to believe nothing, but that's what we see. IRL, wouldn't that size shaft release magma / cause a series of massive seismic effects?

 

[Sector 7]

Since it was shown drilling into the bay itself, perhaps the water just filled in whatever hole was made. Water is a coolant. There is plenty of water in the Pacific Ocean so I would think this would lessen the damage compared to drilling into the dry land of Vulcan.

 

[LeadHead]

I could see i huge ditch like that having some dramatic effects. San Francisco is on the "Ring of fire" on the pacific rim, in other words, in earthquake country. It's very possible it could aggravate one of the major faults in the area. Maybe they have some magic way of correcting seismic issues in the 23rd century.

 

[abaldwin360]

I could see i huge ditch like that having some dramatic effects. San Francisco is on the "Ring of fire" on the pacific rim, in other words, in earthquake country. It's very possible it could aggravate one of the major faults in the area. Maybe they have some magic way of correcting seismic issues in the 23rd century.

Or maybe it "welded" part of the fault line together... haha!

 

[QCzar]

Since it was shown drilling into the bay itself, perhaps the water just filled in whatever hole was made. Water is a coolant. There is plenty of water in the Pacific Ocean so I would think this would lessen the damage compared to drilling into the dry land of Vulcan.

This is my thinking as well and seems the most reasonable explanation. Doesn't mean it wouldn't have any effect whatsoever, but nothing to chew scenery about.

 

[JarodRussell]

Since it was shown drilling into the bay itself, perhaps the water just filled in whatever hole was made. Water is a coolant. There is plenty of water in the Pacific Ocean so I would think this would lessen the damage compared to drilling into the dry land of Vulcan.

Water meeting magma results in a violent explosion. And a hole drilled in the mantle would result in a violent outburst anyway. Earth basically is under constant pressure, and if you open a hole, there will be a release of that pressure. San Francisco, or parts of it, would be screwed.

And I still don't get how a laser beam shooting into magma could create a tunnel that wouldn't refill itself so you're able to drop some stuff into it.

 

[Johnnymuffintop]

Perhaps since it's long after "the big one", the fault line isn't as unstable as it used to be. So yes, the drill did cause some damage, but only like a 3.5. I'm sure the buildings of 23rd century San Francisco are built to withstand earthquakes.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Perhaps since it's long after "the big one", the fault line isn't as unstable as it used to be. So yes, the drill did cause some damage, but only like a 3.5. I'm sure the buildings of 23rd century San Francisco are built to withstand earthquakes.

No...didn't you guys see Superman 1? All it did was rupture the area that Superman fixed in that movie. But since the big one's preasure was relieved, the space drill just moved things around a bit..thats all.

Rob

 

[JarodRussell]

Perhaps since it's long after "the big one", the fault line isn't as unstable as it used to be. So yes, the drill did cause some damage, but only like a 3.5. I'm sure the buildings of 23rd century San Francisco are built to withstand earthquakes.

Has nothing to do with tectonic movement or the San Andreas fault line. If you drill a hole in the Earth where it doesn't belong, it will have some catastrophic results. Essentially you would be creating a volcano.

 

[shapeshifter]

The orbital shot, when the weapon fires, shows a shock wave expanding outward from the impact site but the next scene, of the cadets running out to view the attack, seems to be showing the shock wave force must have been very minimal, (no damage to structures.) Also during the cadets scene, a muddy water fountain is shown gushing up out at the impact site but no hugh wave (tsunami) is visible approaching the shore which should have been the case if the Earths crust had been overtly breached.

I believe the drill touched bottom (muddy fountain) but the water was absorbing most of the drills destructive energy.

 

[M'Sharak]

Perhaps since it's long after "the big one", the fault line isn't as unstable as it used to be. So yes, the drill did cause some damage, but only like a 3.5. I'm sure the buildings of 23rd century San Francisco are built to withstand earthquakes.

Has nothing to do with tectonic movement or the San Andreas fault line. If you drill a hole in the Earth where it doesn't belong, it will have some catastrophic results. Essentially you would be creating a volcano.

Or a larger version of the geysers and hot springs found eighty miles to the north in Napa and Sonoma Counties, at any rate. Maybe the Calpine division of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers could set up a great big geothermal power plant in the Golden Gate.

Not sure how much effect the GSD would have had on fault activity, though, as the drilling site falls roughly midway between the two major faults which bracket San Francisco Bay -- the San Andreas and the Hayward.

 

[Timo]

I don't think we need assume that the drill really made a hole in the mantle, even in the case of Vulcan. Breaching the crust would be enough; the red matter delivery device was probably capable of hurling the red matter the rest of the way.

That is, no drill (especially a "death ray" one that doesn't feature a drilling shaft that would become a hollow pipe when the drilling is completed) would be able to keep a hole open in the mantle for more than a fraction of a second. Keeping open a hole in the crust for a few dozen seconds should be perfectly possible, though.

On the issue of the damage shown at San Francisco, yes, there probably should have been more of a shockwave from the water turning into hot vapor. But we only got, what, less than a minute of effective drilling? Perhaps the death ray wasn't firing at full blast at first, and the water indeed absorbed the energy (something Nero wouldn't have to worry about if he really had Earth's defenses silenced via Pike's codes, and thus could spend hours upon hours drilling).

Vulcan's crust might well be easier to break than Earth's, what with Vulcan being, well, volcanic. Perhaps Nero was aiming at a fault line on both planets for easy penetration. Or perhaps he was aiming at a spot near an important city for the added effect of maximally disrupting that city's command and defense functions.

Another possibility: the death ray of the drill may have featured a forcefield to keep open the hole created by the destructive part of the ray. The collapse of this field wouldn't yet collapse the hole on Vulcan before Nero fired the red matter through. But such a field would minimize ray/water interaction on Earth, thus explaining why there was no vapor shock wave.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JarodRussell]

Or a larger version of the geysers and hot springs found eighty miles to the north in Napa and Sonoma Counties, at any rate.

There is a big difference between a geyser and creating a direct opening for the magma by drilling a hole in the actual crust.