«There is no certainty at all in any of this, and whoever tells you the opposite is not telling you the truth,» said Stefan Finsterle, a leading hydrogeologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who specializes in understanding
the properties of rock layers and modeling how fluid flows through them.
According to geologist Gary Lash
of the State University
of New York at Fredonia, the intervening
layers of rock have distinct mechanical
properties that would prevent the fissures from expanding a mile or more toward the surface.