Posted on 04/21/2015 7:37:21 PM PDT by Star Traveler
In November of 2011, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake ripped through the small Oklahoma town of Prague, damaging more than a dozen homes and toppling a turret on a St. Gregory's University building in nearby Shawnee.
It was the worst of three large quakes to strike the area over several days, and it still as ranks as the worst Oklahoma has ever experienced. Since then, hundreds more have rattled the state, racking up millions of dollars in damages and unleashing a political and financial maelstrom.
Until 2008, Oklahoma typically had one or two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater per year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey; since the start of 2015, the state has averaged 2 of this strength or greater per day.
"We have a good record going all the way back to the 1970s of magnitude 3 or larger earthquakes. They increased throughout the central U.S. in 2009, but primarily in just a few states like southern Colorado, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma," says Bill Leith, senior science adviser for Earthquake and Geologic Hazards at USGS. "Oklahoma is the most striking case, where the number of earthquakes is now at record levels."
And a growing body of scientific research increasingly connects this upsurge in seismic activity with the recent boom in oil and gas production.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
earthquakes are caused by a release of pent up “energy” of tectonic plates
one might think that fracking would not allow the energy to build up...as much releasing it IF doing ANYTHING...at all.
Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3281737/posts
Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.
The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells.
The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that wastewater wells are causing the majority of the state’s earthquakes.
The statement noted that the most intense seismic activity “is occurring over a large area, about 15 percent of the area of Oklahoma, that has experienced significant increase in wastewater disposal volumes over the last several years.”
The statement and the website’s acknowledgment amount to a turnabout for a state government that has long played down the connection between earthquakes and an oil and gas industry that is Oklahoma’s economic linchpin.
As recently as last fall, Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, indicated that suggestions of a relationship between oil and gas activity and seismicity were speculation, and that more study was needed.
In a news release issued Tuesday, Ms. Fallin called the Geological Survey’s endorsement of that relationship significant, and said the state was dealing with the problem.
“Oklahoma state agencies already are taking action to address this issue and protect homeowners,” she said in a statement.
We’re also getting them in south central Kansas.
I felt two in the last month. The 4.9 last year knocked me out of my bed.
I say California needs a couple F4 tornadoes to balance things out.
I don't care if Oklahoma bounces around like it's on a trampoline. I want cheap gas.
You bet! ... :-) ...
Well, another statistic to look at, per USGS, is that the Kansas-Oklahoma border now accounts for 18.5% of the entire planet’s earthquakes 2.5+ mag over the last 30 days.
frigging lol lol lol lmao!!!!
In Oklahoma they’re looking into the exact type of well that is causing these earthquakes, and once they’ve identified them, they’ll be able to avoid these earthquakes!
These things are handled WITHIN THE STATE, so it will be Oklahomans who will act to protect their buildings and homes ... which is the right place to deal with it ... and NOT on the federal level!
Doesn’t mean anything to me. Its a geologically active area with evidence of major earthquakes (New Madrid scale) within the last 5 or 10 thousand years.
WOW! I did not know that statistic.
But here in Oklahoma, you don’t have to know a single statistic to know SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG in the last few years with these earthquakes!
Great, the CA transplants brought earthquakes. Now Texas is going to fall into the ocean.
Oh I don’t buy in to the fracking argument at all. I just find it fascinating.
I know that the area is exactly where the North American Ridge stopped splitting the continent apart.
So it isn’t merely the taking of the oil and gas, but the infusion of the wastewater underground. Is it not possible to do this without disposing of the wastewater underground?
We’re outside of the New Madrid area of earthquakes. Ours in Oklahoma SKYROCKETED in just the last few years (from around 2009) and there hasn’t been a corresponding skyrocketing of quakes in the New Madrid earthquake zone, which doesn’t have any faults extending over to here.
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