Did anyone feel the ground move?

OK, so the ground - the earth - the planet - is constantly moving. But typically, we ape-descendants don't feel it moving.

In California, and all the way up the West Coast of North America, earthquakes are not uncommon. Earthquakes that we can all feel as they move the ground below us. Indeed, we are all waiting for "The Big One" to hit. Perhaps we are getting a bit impatient. Perhaps the Californians have found a new way to bring excitement into their lives. 

There is a place named "The Geysers" near Anderson Springs, California where people pump waste water into the ground to have it heated by magma, turning it into steam, and then they use the steam for energy. There are evidently thousands of little earthquakes in the area, and there is some evidence that pumping water into the earth's crust is what is causing these little earthquakes. (Who? Us? We're just pumping pressurized water into volcanic magma, what could go wrong?)

So to "up the ante" there are now plans to drill deeper, push more water deeper into the earth, and get more steam for more power so more ape-descendants can use more electricity. See this article in the New York Times for details. This article also has an Interactive Graphic which is worth playing for the enjoyment of watching the details of this plan.

The New York Times article also includes some interesting facts about what happened when people tried this in Basel, Switzerland. Yes, there was an earthquake. A big earthquake. But no, that's not going to happen in California because they're using better technology. And just because there are major fault lines in California is no need for concern, they won't be digging close enough to them for any problems. (No, those aren't linked to each other, we can't see underground, but we know there are no connections. Really.)

So maybe the California people have not watched enough science fiction movies to really scare themselves about this idea. Maybe they've watched too many. Maybe we've all watched too many and are getting really nervous about this for no reason at all.... yeah, that's it.