The Verge
April 7, 2014
A group of French scientists has developed a method
of shielding cities from the force of an earthquake, and after
devastating earthquakes in Chile, the idea is drawing some much-deserved attention.
It works on the principle of refraction, planting an array of boreholes
to redirect the reverberations around the city and into areas where
they will do less damage. If the system works, it could be a new way to
shield populated areas from the devastating effects of an earthquake.

In the experiment,
the researchers dug a grid of cylindrical holes five meters deep in the
soil, then used seismographic sensors to monitor how force propagated
through the array. As expected, sound resonated through the array
according to the properties of acoustics, refracting around the
boreholes in curved patterns.