Oil wells, gas wells qnd injection wells do not penetrate the entire crust, only a small fraction of the full depth of the crust. The mantle has NEVER been breached by drilling. The most prolific drilling area is the Permian Basin. Areas outside of Midland loom like a plague of pumpjaack-locusts. I know from eyes-on.
Also, it is not an earthquake prone area.
Put into a very simple analogy, does your knee buckle very time you give a blood sample?
Ditchsinse just lost TONS of credibility by continuing this myth.
I hear you on that. I’ve never been on the drilling to be the major causes of these earthquake outbreaks here in the midwest. I’ve been watching this ever since earthquakes picked up in this area. We do have fault lines. One major one goes from NE of OKC up through east of Wichita, all the way up to Manhattan, KS and ends in Nebraska. It does fork off in northern Oklahoma and ends in south central Kansas. In 1867, a 5.1 earthquake hit near Manhattan, KS so there is a history, this fault line can produce earthquakes over the years.
I’m not sure why Dutchsince continues to think drilling to be the major cause of these earthquakes. I seriously doubt it is because of the history of this faultline and other faultlines which run throughout the midwest. For whatever reason, these faultlines are just getting active again, IMHO.
I will give him some credit for possibly explaining how they go in waves building up energy down the line of the Earth’s plates. I do think that part is possible and those in the recent path of earthquakes, to be cautious as they may relieve pressure across or along the plates. Yeah, I do cringe when he starts blaming drilling for the earthquakes because we just don’t know for a fact. Fault lines exist in many places and they are going to do what they do, history tells us.
CGato
And when he points out the geothermal power plants on the sides of volcanoes. Where else you gonna put them. He is a bit of a kook in mho. Earthquakes happen man.
:: Fault lines exist in many places and they are going to do what they do, history tells us. ::
What many don’t take into account is that “tectonics” means >>new faults<< are developing all the time, occasionally in central areas of seemingly stable plates.
Ditchsinse just lost TONS of credibility by continuing this myth.
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Imo, he has the cause and effect backwards. The wells are there because the crust is somewhat compromised in those areas and that’s why drill-able resources are within get-able ranges of depth. Something’s gotta make the pockets and folds for the stuff to collect in.
And the geo-thermal wells are where they’re at because geo-heat is close to the surface right there.
He’s never said that drilling causes earthquakes. He says that the drilling sites create new weakened areas for pressure to be released. He is not against drilling. He made a correlation that the OK & KS earthquakes have increased as drilling and fracking have increased. That’s his theory.