Quakes Caused By Waste From Gas Wells, Study Finds

NPR.org ^ | April 11, 2012 | Christopher Joyce

[Mad Dawgg]

The U.S. Geological Survey will soon confirm that the oil and gas industry is creating earthquakes, and new data from the Midwest finds that these man-made quakes are happening more often than originally thought.

Earthquakes happen when faults in the Earth slip and slide against each other. There's continuous stress on innumerable faults on our continent, but seismologists like Bill Ellsworth, from the U.S. Geological Survey, started seeing something odd about 12 years ago.

"One thing we had begun to notice was that there were an unusual number of earthquakes in the middle of the country," he says, an area not known for quakes. They were small, though — usually just over magnitude 3. Then, in 2009, the shaking got much more frequent.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Nature is a mother!

[Fresh Wind]

[RipSawyer]

“I was worried I mgith actually be”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

See, there was an Earthquake right there while you were typing! It threw that g up and it came down in the wrong place. That proves their theory.

[CottShop]

llo

[The Working Man]

1 million gallon of water to frac one well? I’ve been around many a well frac job and they sure as heck didn’t have 150 frac tanks sitting on the site. Maybe need to revisit your 1 million gallon statement.

---

I have been told that the latest methods use Liquid Natural Gas instead of Water based Fracing fluids. It works fine and the normal well head methodology recovers the LPG during it’s working lifetime.

[Baynative]

"Fracking will be next."

That's the point.

[Mad Dawgg]

In Post 31 of this thread I said:

"It looks like someone is setting the stage for the Gub'Ment to put a moratorium on Fracking. I bet Obama has an Executive Order all typed up ready to go waiting on a big MidWest Earthquake to happen so he can ride in and grab the thunder!"

Well I guess I was wrong. Obama didn't wait for a big earthquake: White House creates natural gas task force

Money Quote: "In issuing an executive order to create the interagency task force, President Barack Obama said the group was needed to make sure federal agencies that oversee “the safe and responsible development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources” are on the same page."

[Graewoulf]

Meanwhile the drumbeat of Dictator Obama grows louder:

regulate -— control -— destroy -— Regulate -— control -— destroy -— REgulate -— control -— destroy -— REGulate -— control -— destroy -— REGU

[Smokin' Joe]

If, even for a second, we assume that the injection of wastewater into disposal wells is causing small earthquakes, that means stresses present in the Earth's crust are beinr relieved, without being stored up for some sort of megaquake later.

A series of small seismic events relieving stress might be eminently preferable to one big quake relieving all the stress at once, and far less damaging.

So, what's the down side?

Maybe someone should start "Citizens for a Stress Free Craton" or something...

[xzins]

I’ve gotten the following page 3 times in a row when trying to go to the link:

Page Not Found
Sorry! We can’t seem to find the page you were looking for. Please visit the NPR Help Center to report this page as missing, or use the links below to continue your search.
Search NPR.org

Other Options
All Programs A-Z
NPR Help Center
About NPR
Contact NPR
It’s a shame that your page is lost, but at least it’s in good company; stick around to browse through NPR stories about lost people, places and things that still haven’t turned up.

[Mad Dawgg]

Try this one:

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150440356/quakes-caused-by-waste-from-gas-wells-study-finds

[Smokin' Joe]

This is just another shot in the enviros anti-fraccing war.

You are right, but for it to work, you have to become a victim to the intentional obfustication of the media.

These aren't frac jobs, they are disposal wells.

Water is produced, in some proportion to the oil produced, and that water is commonly salt water far too saline to pour out on the ground or simply dump in a creek, and often containing Hydrogen Sulfide dissolved in it. The best way to dispose of it is to find a suitable porous formation far deeper than any viable aquifer, with low enough pore pressure and already containing salt water, and inject the production water into that formation.

Such disposal methods for production water have been in widespread use since the '50s and earlier, and have, on occasion been linked with small siesmic events, usually when near known faults. It seems odd that suddenly this has become some sort of issue (none of the events has been 'major', ever).

The only thing I can see is that the MSM will attempt to equate the long term injection of production water with the short-term and finite fluid injection of a frac job, and then confuse the two so they can somehow use it against fracking.

The Commies' war on (our) oil continues.

[kcvl]

http://www.diggles.com/openhouse2003/030530P-11_Bill_Ellsworth.jpg

Earthquake Science Center Staff Directory
William L. Ellsworth
Employee
ellsworth@usgs.gov

Phone: 650-329-4784
Fax: 650-329-5163

U.S. Geological Survey
345 Middlefield Road MS 977
Menlo Park, CA 94025-3591

Room: 3A-109

[Mad Dawgg]

It looks like NPR moved the story on their site causing the FR links to the story to be dead, if possible could you update the links in the above story with this one:

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150440356/quakes-caused-by-waste-from-gas-wells-study-finds

[kcvl]

“If drilling caused earthquakes, TX would have slid into the ocean 100 years ago; and Oklahoma and Louisiana would be giant sink holes.”

Arkansas would be too! And we have an ‘evil’ oil refinery and Murphy Oil in our town. Imagine the HORROR! /s

I want an oil well drilled in MY BACKYARD...bring it on! I’ll even decorate it at Christmas.

[xzins]

Thanks, MD. It worked.

That said, there was nothing in the article that showed comparisons to normal seismic activity in the supposedly affected areas. Also, there was nothing explaining the difference between a tectonic plate shift and a simple shift of mass.

For it to be an earthquake, technically it must be a plate shift. A landslide is not a quake, and a sub-surface slide would also not be a quake, but it would register seismically, iirc.

[kcvl]

We can do it this way...

Oil field workers following the discovery of the Richardson No. 1 well at the Smackover Pool in Union County, Arkansas; July 1922.

Or this way....

China $15 billion to improve Iraq's Rumaila oil field

China A $20 billion investment into the Sudanese oil industry

[okie01]

Such disposal methods for production water have been in widespread use since the '50s and earlier, and have, on occasion been linked with small siesmic events, usually when near known faults. It seems odd that suddenly this has become some sort of issue (none of the events has been 'major', ever).

Thanks for the additional information and perspective.

The left's war on prosperity continues...

[TXnMA]

Eldorado?

[CottShop]

on the east coast, states liek NY have had am oratorium on drilling and frackign in order to ‘study the issue’ of ‘polluted water claims’- they have been studying this issue since apaprently 2008 and still haven’t been able to come up with any stats? Yet comunities all over NY are banning drilling altogether because residents THINK it might lead to contaminated water despite the lack of evidence to support such fears?