The biggest problem with this idea is that the seismic waves, like any other kind of waves, are obviously stronger near the point where energy is released, which makes this more suitable for a glorious suicide than for attack... So they must not only make an earthquake strong enough to be "felt by people" thousands of miles away, they must also make its epicenter thousands of miles away, in territory they don't control.

So, the trick is synchronized cow tipping to cause a resonance effect to generate a directed seismic wave... that's how the U.S.A. causes earthquakes in the Middle East, right?

In the mid-70's, there ws the theory going the rounds that China could cause an earthquake in the US if every resident of China stood on a six-foot-high platform and jumped at the same time. Aiming it, however, seemed to be the problem. People would have to jump on queue.

Mmm does it really have to be an earthquake? Capturing, pointing an asteroid seems to be easier...

@Bookeater I'd like it to be an earthquake, yes. And this nation doesn't have spacefaring capabilities, so they're stuck inside the atmosphere.

Bombs and 30 yrs of pumping all fall short of your goal lacking real energy at <5 Richter (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_seismicity). No earthquake, but a nicely scaled 'natural' disaster: counterpunch.org/2016/05/27/… All you need is to find a fault and then front a drilling operation.

Your only hope is the fault is already ready to break. When its at 99% you might just be able to do it with every nuke you got. Otherwise it would require vast amounts of luck. You drilling or otherwise messing with it to find the one perfect spot in the fault line. Even then it probably wouldn't be the city destroying earth quake you hoped for.

The March 11,2011 Quake of 8.9 was felt 2500km (about 1500miles away). However, at that range you either need a siesmograph, or maybe the ground shakes a little. People would be like hmm, that was odd and 15 seconds later move on and forget it happened. At 2000+ miles it would have to an earth rending quake probably greater than 11. Also near the surface.

At 3000+ miles to have a quake large enough to damage them would be off the charts at the epic center. Like continent destroying proportions completely beyond any quake we humans could every cause. Triggering numerous fault each with near max stress would have to occur.

@JustinThyme I think you really mean "jump on cue" as "jumping on queue" would involve over half a billion Chinese jumping on a line of people. A bit squishy and not very earthquake generating..

@a4android I see your point (and now I can't unsee it). But I am not sure your grammar change corrects it. It's 'go jump on the pile' not 'go jumping on the pile', so 'jump' does seem to denote a singular action, while 'jumping' seems to denote multiple actions. But 'cue' can be a noun, and in this case it is ambiguous if it is used as a noun or verb. Perhaps it should be 'jump WHEN cued'.

@JustinThyme I wasn't recommending a change to the grammar. The phase of "doing something or whatever on cue" is well established in the English language. The problem is that "cue" & "queue" are homophones.

This reminds me of Lex Luther's real estate plan. Otisburg?!

It's a silly idea. Any enemy of a nation state capable of using technological means to provoke an earthquake would have themselves the technological competence to recognize the artificial means by which said earthquake was triggered. You would not be able to hide what you had done - given that this invalidates the stealth element of the attack, there are far better means of conventional warfare to attack an enemy. Earthquakes have huge collateral damage and disproportionately affect weak (ie: poor civilian) structures. As a tactical move it would be very poor for the cost.

Nuclear Weapon are good at generating earthquake.

@a4android, related what-if.xkcd.com/8

@a4android Like i aid, I saw your point. But jump ON cue still allows the vision of everyone on top of the poor cue, which was unfortunate enough to be in the way. You see, there is also a pool cue by the same spelling. But they could also jump in queue when cued while folding a cue.

One thing not being discussed is that the transfer of energy in Earth-Quakes is different in different parts of the world. In Earthquake prone areas, only the most significant Earthquakes will be felt far away (a 6,0 quake in LA will not be felt in San Francisco) where as the East Coast Quake in 2011 was felt as far north as Canada and in every state on the east coast with exception to Florida. This was because the rock on the East Coast is less flexible, so when something shakes it, it transfers more energy. NYC received Tweets about the event in DC seconds before they felt it.

Did you test these suggestions this morning?