USGS study links fracking wastewater injection with surge in Raton Basin earthquakes

Summit County Voice ^ | September 27, 2014 | Bob Berwyn

[trebb]

Kind of like blaming a homeowner for over watering his garden when his house is swallowed by a sinkhole...

[X-spurt]

Any recoverable oil is removed prior to injection, but the water is itself a lubricant.

The good Dr. is probably onto something in #8.

To quote hitlery “what difference can it make?”. Unless I missed something, haven’t all these quakes blamed on water injection been just relatively light tremors? Now if these start getting up in the breaking things range, might be something to worry with, until then enjoy the thrill.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

So, why is it that the 4 CORNERS area which has tens of thousands of gas wells is still stable?

[Cen-Tejas]

Ditto!

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Better the tremors locally than having to bomb muslims internationally. Stop giving tons of money to merciless lazy jerks and spend a tiny portion of your gas dollars making a little stronger structure. The earth aint gonna explode like California, it’s not a major fault with volcanoes coming, it’s only gonna shake a little.

[onedoug]

USGS. Feral gummint. Right.

[CedarDave]

This isn't fracking, this is from disposal wells injecting production water. Yes, this has been shown to cause small earthquakes in the immediate vicinity of the injection wells in some locations.
Why 'fracking' was used is beyond me (/s), because there is some water produced with almost all oil and most gas. that production water is commonly disposed of in injection wells, whether the well was hydraulically fractured or not, and the amount of produced water will eventually exceed multiples of the volume of frac fluid.

This water may not even be from fracking in the basin but from a third type of production called "coal gas." This gas is produced from water saturated coal beds that have gas trapped by the presence and pressure of water. To release the gas, large volumes of water are pumped at the BEGINNING of the extraction process to lower the hydraulic head so as to release the gas. This gas doesn't have the type of volatiles associated with conventural production so the water is relatively fresh. It would be useful to reuse the water but injection may be the more economical option for the producer. In addition, and unlike conventional gas production, water volumes decrease with time, much like heavy pumping conventional water wells with no recharge.

[Army Air Corps]

ping