I heard a report on NPR about fracking that talked about the earthquake risks. They talked about all these ~2.5 quakes caused by fracking and I thought, “wait a minute! Don’t heavy trucks on the highway and Kiss concerts create more vibrations than that?”
First, my impression was that a “small” earthquake will reduce stress and actually prevent its buildup which would cause bigger quakes. Second, based on my understanding of the Richter scale, and the fact that most people do not even feel a 4.0 quake, how bad, exactly, is a 2.5 quake? Do we care, and if we do, why?
IOW, after presenting all their facts, the NPR story convinced me that earthquakes are not a problem with fracking, regardless of their own “desperate danger” tone.
You can’t feel a 2.5.