The full question is: Is it possible that the recent, successive, long droughts from Australia to the West Coast of both American continents are signs of epic crust failure?
The question is aimed specifically at the possible link between droughts at those specific areas and the weakening/loosening of lateral stress between tectonic plates.
The reasoning is based on the following observations:
The crust is not rooted in the mantle, and is cut in numerous crustal plates. Tectonic plates are held in place like an arch, so the gravity and lateral stress and friction are the main forces holding them up. Mantle flow provides uneven support to continental plates and is actually the main destabilizing force according to current theories.
Based on the idea above, if humans dig up too much underground materials around the fault lines, the edges of the fault lines are weakened: there is less material to keep up adequate lateral stress. Then, the soil around the softer/weaker side of the fault will deform and be compacted, or fail and result in earthquake. Deformation/compaction and fault failure do happen naturally too, but humans may have extracted too much underground resources for the natural healing process to catch up with the rate of weakening at the edges. It is known that the fault of the West Coast is lacking stress and the soil is deformed in the Amos et al. (2014) study. If this keeps up, the arch structure of the crust will crumble down catastrophically, and in chain reaction too. And it doesn't take "much" edge weakening to fail an arch.
Additional information: The Amos study says that California lost 160 KM^3 of groundwater in the past 150 years. Now, add the amount of oil extracted. Then, add the amount of oil, water, minerals that are extracted along the West Coast of North and South America, Australia, Japan, South East Asian Islands. This should give some idea of how big are the holes human dug underground.
The scenario may correspond with the Pacific plates. There are numerous oil, and water extracting operations all around the Pacific. After decades of intensive and continuous resource extractions, it may be showing terminal signs of the natural healing process failing to catch up with the rate of weakening at the edges. First, there are quite a few very strong earthquakes concentrated in the last ten years (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/10_largest_world.php). This alone may be trivial since the Pacific Ring of Fire is well known to churn out earthquakes. However, combined with the recent persistent droughts of Australia, Chile, US (especially California), and this year, Canada, the situation may be really concerning.
Droughts alone can be caused by weather patterns. Climate change can cause it too, but it is a global factor, as opposed to more localized factor such as weather patterns. However, I think that underground processes can also cause drought. Aquifers can store a lot of heat, so the lack of underground water means that the geothermal energy will dissipate into the surrounding soil, basically slowly baking it. Less water also means that the soil is more prone to compression. Compression, especially continuous, even if it's slow, also generates heat. Oil reservoirs are also similar, but since oil is more reactive to heat by transforming into gas, and continuously extracted by humans, their pore pressure varies more. The presence of oil reservoirs around the fault lines may serve as springs. By extracting oil/gas, humans lessen the expansion force of those liquid and gas and reduce the pore pressure, which stabilizes the fault line. But in the long term, as is the case now, the reality is that there will be not enough oil to provide adequate pore pressure/lateral stress/counter-compression force. This may be the cause of the recent frequent strong earthquakes; the plates are loosening. Eventually, all the edges of the Pacific ring will all fail in an epic catastrophe, as the arch structure of the crust crumbles. Also, by removing oil, it liberates more space for gas to form. Gas is more compressible and heated by compression; it is another source geothermal heat. It is like a bike air pump/air suspension system. The idea is that the excess of geothermal energy causes surface water to dry out faster.
Another possibility is that the fault line of the West American continent is already caving in and is dipping deeper/entering into more contact with the mantle. The mantle is a way stronger source of heat, and without adequate of underground heat absorbers, the surface soil becomes baked. I think that it's also the cause of the Blob (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob_%28Pacific_Ocean%29). The heat of the soil is escaping into the ocean, forming the Blob. Combined with El Nino, it worsens the drought.
In summary, humans have dug up resources around active fault lines of the Pacific for more than a century. The weakened soil/plate edges lead to excessive geothermal energy affecting the surface.
So yeah, in the end, is it possible that the recent droughts are signs of epic crust failure?
Please kindly point out if my observation/logic makes sense and/or may correspond with reality.
