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Earthquakes and Fracking

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Earthquakes and Fracking information on Earthworks Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing Fact Sheet

Earthquakes caused by fracking

Earthquakes caused by fracking wastewater injection

Washington Post Article

By Dan Keating and Darla Cameron

A lawsuit claims that Oklahoma’s great increase in earthquake activity has been caused by pumping waste from drilling operations back underground. The suit involves the largest measured quake in the history of the state, a 5.6 tremor that happened in Prague, east of Oklahoma City in November 2011. The pace of quakes with magnitude 3 or higher has increased since then, with 567 in 2014, and 52 in less than four weeks this month.

See article here https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/oklahoma-earthquakes/?tid=a_inl

Earthquakes and regulations in USA

Many states in USA have been experiencing increases in earthquakes including Ohio, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, and in some of states restrictions have been placed on fluid injection underground.

Oklahoma Corporate Comission issued restrictions on wells in earthquake prone areas. Similar steps have been taken in Texas.

Arkansas suspended injection wells after an earthquake swarm in 2011. https://www.earthworksaction.org/earthblog/detail/firms_suspend_activities_after_arkansas_earthquakes_linked_to_fracking#.V2BvsHlJn-d

See more at:  https://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/fracking_earthquakes?gclid=Cj0KEQjw1v66BRCV-6rh6s-Biu8BEiQAelpui1xLfC6ezKPWn2yvPxyjWvG1g-gsZja0-kR9E1e0hP8aAtGl8P8HAQ#.V2BwK3lJn-d

The Limestone Coast of SA is the fourth most seismic area in SA.

The epi-centre of South Australia’s biggest earthquake between Kingston SE and Beachport occurred in 1897, magnitude 6.5, intensity 9. It was felt in Port Augusta and Melbourne, toppled chimneys in Adelaide and there was massive damage around Beachport, Kingston and Robe and liquefaction occurred.

slumping possibly due to liquifaction near Robe

Fracking causing earthquakes

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Science has determined that fracking causes earthquakes — now it’s trying to figure out what to do next

Business Insider Australia by Shane Ferro  Mar 5 2015,

Researchers are pretty sure at this point that the increase in earthquakes in the middle of the US in recent years have been caused by fracking.

The USGS put out a news release in February that starts with this:

Large areas of the United States that used to experience few or no earthquakes have, in recent years, experienced a remarkable increase in earthquake activity that has caused considerable public concern as well as damage to structures. This rise in seismic activity, especially in the central United States, is not the result of natural processes.

You can see in the chart at right that California, the light blue line, has a noisy but relatively stable number of earthquakes every year. Nothing about the dark blue line, earthquakes detected in Oklahoma, looks stable.

The question now is what to do about it.  Read more at http://www.businessinsider.com.au/fracking-earthquake-detection-2015-3

Earthquakes from deep fluid injection in wells increasing

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U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey

Coping with Earthquakes Induced by Fluid Injection. Released: 19th Feb 2015

MENLO PARK, Calif.— A paper published in Science provides a case for increasing transparency and data collection to enable strategies for mitigating the effects of human-induced earthquakes caused by wastewater injection associated with oil and gas production in the United States.  The paper is the result of a series of workshops led by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in collaboration with the University of Colorado, Oklahoma Geological Survey and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, suggests that it is possible to reduce the hazard of induced seismicity through management of injection activities.

Large areas of the United States that used to experience few or no earthquakes have, in recent years, experienced a remarkable increase in earthquake activity that has caused considerable public concern as well as damage to structures. This rise in seismic activity, especially in the central United States, is not the result of natural processes.

Instead, the increased seismicity is due to fluid injection associated with new technologies that enable the extraction of oil and gas from previously unproductive reservoirs. These modern extraction techniques result in large quantities of wastewater produced along with the oil and gas. The disposal of this wastewater by deep injection occasionally results in earthquakes that are large enough to be felt, and sometimes damaging. Deep injection of wastewater is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in detected earthquakes and the corresponding increase in seismic hazard in the central U.S.  Read more at http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=4132#.VSRCQWc5DX6