Request For Information!

Although we think that our little community here at TSSBP is a fairly insular little group, discussing issues of little attention to the world at large, I can assure you that is not the case. It turns out that people of eclectic interests read what we have to say and would like us to comment on issues of vital national importance. I got this E-mail from "Susie":

I work for an IT company that has extensive contracts with the Department of the Navy. I am looking for information about US submarines that have been damaged by earthquakes while berthed, but preferably while on patrol. Since we just experienced our own 5.9 bit of excitement here yesterday afternoon, this would be a topic of interest to our in-house Team Sub.



Based on your comments and your readership, you seem to have extensive resources; most of what I come up with is speculation about how US subs’ underwater testing has been the cause of whales and dolphins beaching themselves, the island of Sumatra shifting, and a trove of other sins so I’m hoping that you have more verifiable information on this topic. If you can assist me in this quest, please send any links that would provide some details.

So what do you think? Can we help Susie out? I've discussed my ideas on whether or not naval sonar is responsible for marine mammal beachings before (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), so you could say I'm on the side of the "skeptics". As far as submarine operations shifting the island of Sumatra, I had heard that there are some who think that "Bush/Cheney" set off a nuclear bomb to cause the 2004 tsunami to distract attention from their theft of Ohio votes in the election; once again, I'm a little skeptical about that one. I discussed my views on that topic on other websites.

So what do you think? As far as the effects of sonar on marine mammal beaching, there are probably legitimate security classification concerns with revealing too much, but I think we can all agree that the story of submarine operations causing tectonic shifts is much too important to worry about little details like "national secrets", so I encourage all my readers with vital information on this important topic to let us know in the comments!