Did Fracking Cause Recent Oklahoma Earthquakes?

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Oklahoma is typically seismically stable, with about 50 small quakes a year — but in 2009, that number jumped up to more than 1,000 and on November 5 a 5.6-magnitude tremor rattled Oklahoma — one of the strongest to ever hit the state — leading scientists to wonder if the increasingly common use of fracking, the controversial practice of blasting underground rock formations with high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals to extract natural gas, may have put stress on fault lines. Human intervention has caused earthquakes before with one 'textbook case' occurring in 1967 in India, says Peter Fairley at IEEE Spectrum, when the reservoir behind the hydroelectric Koyna Dam was filled up. The added water 'unleashed a magnitude 6.3 quake' by placing stress 'on a previously unknown fault, killing 180 people and leaving thousands homeless.' Last week's earthquakes and aftershocks are centered in rural Lincoln County, in an area about 30 miles east of Oklahoma City and there are 181 injection wells In Lincoln County. But a recent study by Austin Holland, a seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey, says that it's possible that hydraulic fracking caused a series of small earthquakes, peaking at 2.8, in an area south of Oklahoma City but doesn't believe fracking caused the big Nov. 5, 6 and 8 earthquakes comparing a man-made earthquake to a mosquito bite. 'It's really quite inconsequential,' says Holland."

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was global warming.

Oh frak,

[asdf7890]

It was all Starbuck's sweary mouth fault!

More Data

[Sponge Bath]

I lived in Lawton, Oklahoma for a few months. I can't think of a better place to experiment with fracking and earthquakes. Let's go do some science!

dumbass

[spidercoz]

If you get 181 mosquito bites in the same 1-square inch of skin, what do you think will happen?

Re:A BSG fan may ask...

[Totenglocke]

Just one - it's just that Starbuck fracks so hard, she'll literally rock your world.

Re:dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get a nasty rash, possibly some nasty disease, and people will laugh at you for not getting insect repellent and being a mosquito magnet.

Re:dumbass

[GameboyRMH]

I can confirm this.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

We just need to start living in bouncy castles instead of inflexible, tends-to-break-apart-into-heavy-and-sharp-things houses.

Re:Smaller earthquakes are better

[spidr_mnky]

So, unless Oklahoma is in unrecoverable ruins, that's Kohath: 1, pclminion: 0.

Re:2009?

[Abstrackt]

It took two years to form a committee to figure out who to blame.