Bear with me. I am not in your league but I have spet enough time in allied fields to wonder about this. Chris, your last line stuck with me: "The recent quakes in Guy may not fit theat description because they are relatively shallow." Before that, you referenced L. Tim Long's paper on quakes started by fluids int he crust that eventually weaken the crust. What I see here - and I may be completely wrong - is that this corresponds to the concept that fluids, being, well, fluid in nature, theoretically can rise, especially through a weakened area in the crust and therefore, the quakes in Guy, could be an adaptive form of the evolving flow conected to the Hot Springs. Also, I cannot help but wonder if the origin of the diamonds found in Arkansas, combined with the hot springs and some, granted questionable interpretations of from eye-witness accounts of the 1811/1812 New Madrid quakes' heating of the Mississippi River might signal a volcanic potential in the area. Diamonds are created by Kimberlite volcanoes, if I understand correctly, and are forced to the surface with such speed and force that the diamonds do not turn to carbon. Thus, there is some possibility that the volcanic traces/residue do not appear to be the same as a "regular" volcano and could, some 200 years laer be overlooked, espeically since prevailing thought is that such volcanoes no longer exist. My dense gray matter wants to argue; it wants to speculate; to it, there seems a possibility that the area is potentially connected by a web of ancient lava tubes and the fluid (read: oil/petrochemicals) changes due to high pressure extraction in places such as Oklahoma could (think domino effect) subject outlying areas to the stress from both the pressure and from the...sucking/displacing the petrochemicals from the areas might leave a void, rendering the outlying area unstable? Again, just an uneducated theory, but one that keeps me wondering at night. Indulge me?
Thanks,
Beth