[Excerpt]
Fracking May Have Caused 50 Earthquakes in Oklahoma
In a surprising turn of events, Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, recently admitted that its hydraulic fracturing operations “likely” caused an earthquake in England. Predictably, this news quickly sent a shockwave through the U.K., the oil and natural gas industries, and the environmental activist community. And it certainly feeds plenty of speculation that the same phenomenon could be occurring elsewhere. . .
Read more: Care2.com
UPDATE: As Jill notes below, this quake may be unrelated to fracking. But with 50 suspect ones in the same state, I've got to wonder if it's possible. If the other, smaller quakes spurred a chain reaction? I think it would be foolish to discount the possibility of some reaction, at least in the other cases.
And, Faye, if you're reading this, I didn't get the story idea from you, but was astonished to see that you "liked" this story as a Facebook user. That's quite the coincidence!
It is doubtful that yesterday's 5.6 earthquake had anything to do with fracking. Reading through (well, skimming) the report (http://www.ogs.ou.edu/pubsscanned/openfile/OF1_2011.pdf), it seems that anthropogenic earthquakes are close to wells and tend to occur at the same depth as the fluid injection. I have also never heard of one over 3.0, although I will adjust my beliefs if I learn of more evidence. Oklahoma has a history of earthquakes like yesterday's, including at least one other with a "foreshock":
ReplyDeletehttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/oklahoma/history.php
Jill, I really wasn't trying to say it was necessarily related, merely raising the question (and thanks for checking). Thus the question mark and the "look what I found" statement, rather than a conclusion. I was just surprised that an article had been written the day before the quake on the subject.
ReplyDeleteThe other big surprise is that even this issue has become political, with liberals anti-fracking and conservatives pro.