Did Fracking Cause Recent Oklahoma Earthquakes? 288
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."
Earthquakes are the least of the problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone made a nice song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=timfvNgr_Q4 [youtube.com]
Smaller earthquakes are better (Score:5, Interesting)
What if it did? Earthquakes can't be avoided. The longer that seismic pressure builds, the bigger the quake. Relieving this pressure early by causing minor quakes should help avoid massive, deadly earthquakes in the future.
Re:Probably. (Score:5, Interesting)
Butterfly Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
The Butterfly Effect is described in terms of weather systems, where it's total bullshit.
But here, not so much. The ground under us is full of cracks that have stopped moving because they're caught on something. Break that something, and you unleash a quake. If the reason the crack can't produce enough force is because there's another, smaller thing they're caught on, too, then all you have to do is break that smaller thing to allow the bigger thing to feel enough stress to be broken.
And so on.
As I said, this is bullshit in the atmosphere, where violence is the result of concentration of energy from the movement of thousands or millions of cubic kilometers of atmosphere into a vortex in their midst, something a butterfly can have no bearing on. But underground these chains of critical stability are all over the place. Just look at the NEIC's map and see them letting go daily. And each time one lets go, it changes the criticality of another, or of another part of itself.
Fracking certainly could be the causative factor in the initiation of a chain of releases that result in a larger release. The fact that there are smaller quakes means that of course they could be releasing the crack to bear on a major sticking point with more force than before, and certainly could lead to a larger quake.
Any seismologist who discounts this possibility is suspect.
Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/top-5-ways-that/ [wired.com]
As close i got get on short notice. I posted this two years ago IIRC
Petro Engineer's POV (Score:5, Interesting)
I am or was a petroleum engineer, and I can tell you that yes it's entirely possible for subsurface oil and gas operations to affect fault lines and cause seismic events like those described.
With that being said, I think there is also a lot of FUD surrounding the practice of fracing. Fracing is not particularly new to the Oil and Gas industry, and there are a lot of Oil and Gas operations that cause environmental and seismic problems, not just fracing.
I feel like people have sort of jumped on to this Fracing thing, because of the "Gasland" documentary. And now they have some "evil" practice to blame the Oil and Gas companies for, but in reality I think it is a little more complicated than that. We have found trillions of cubic feet of natural gas reserves that can be released through fracing, and this has a major implications for domestic energy production and the US economy.
Re:Statistics Please! (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of an endless stream of anecdotes can someone please do some statistics. Number of quakes within X miles of all fracking sites since fracking began versus number of quakes within X miles of all fracking sites in the years before fracking began. I'm sure it won't be pleasant to gather all the numbers, but there are dozens of places where fracking is being used, I can't imagine we don't have enough data by now to discover if there are some basic trends or not.
That's not really going to tell you much - what you really need is historical seismic data. Generally speaking, you'd expect a lot of small seismic activity temporally centered around a larger event. So what you really need to know is - does the pattern of seismic activity prior to this quake differ substantially from the activity observed prior to other historical quakes in the same area?
With fracking being such a recent practice, and given that eastern US earthquakes tend to effect a relatively large area thanks to the geology of the region... just looking at recent trends could very well be misleading.
Unfortunately the midwest is rather stable geologically, so there's likely not enough data points to allow one to draw a conclusion with any expectation of certainty.
Re:Stupid Media. (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely- and I wish people would realise this.
It appears mostly cleaner than other forms of energy retrieval- certainly much cleaner than coal and less environmental damage than moving mountain tops around.
It is something that needs to be monitored- and from what I understand the use of toxic chemicals is not required- there are non-toxic equivalents that may cost a little more... USE THEM.
Regulate the industry- don't just kill it outright.
I'm also curious specifically on the drinking water pollution- something we should watch. Some people have detected elevated levels of methane in their water around fracking sites. I'm curious how much of this is really from fracking and how much is due to the fact that they only frack in places where there is methane in the ground anyway.
Sure you're going to find more methane in areas around fracking sites than elsewhere... that's why they are fracking there in the first place.
Please proceed with fracking- but have independent review and make sure shotcuts arn't taken. Make sure we watch all the time and take every precaution not to make a "deepwater" mistake. This is potentially a great way to get "relatively" clean power.
Re:Smaller earthquakes are better (Score:5, Interesting)
Why now? Because its political (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Live in Oklahoma, work around the industry.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Northwestern Oklahoma, and currently work for a Oil and Natural Gas company who not only supplies but regularly uses fracking equipment. At present there are over 300 wells in northwestern Oklahoma that have been fracked in the past 2 years, and yet northwest Oklahoma has seen absolutely no change in seismic activity. And yes fracking is the standard in the US for natural gas well production, and has been for at least 6 years. Thank you for being sensible and knowledgeable on the subject, so few are on here.
Most likely not fracking.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Statistics Please! (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Not Just Oklahoma, Arkansas, too (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/guy-earthquake-swarm-arkansas_n_824497.html
A very focused sampling of USGS data in the area.
http://neic.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/epic/epic.cgi?SEARCHMETHOD=2&FILEFORMAT=4&SEARCHRANGE=HH&SLAT2=36&SLAT1=34&SLON1=-93.5&SLON2=-91.5&SYEAR=2008&SMONTH=1&SDAY=1&EYEAR=2011&EMONTH=12&EDAY=12&LMAG=&UMAG=&NDEP1=&NDEP2=&IO1=&IO2=&CLAT=0.0&CLON=0.0&CRAD=0.0&SUBMIT=Submit+Search
259 earth quakes in a 2x2 degree area in the last 4 years. If you look before 2008, you'll see about 30 in as many years.
Slashdot won't let me post the actual coordinates for you to plot yourself, but here's a map.
http://batchgeo.com/map/e5dde7a6f9906a750e9dc656bfb25e1e