Posted on 12/26/2014 6:59:57 PM PST by Star Traveler
There have been more than 500 magnitude 3.0 or greater earthquakes in Oklahoma this year, up significantly from 109 in 2013 and just 35 in 2012, according to U.S. Geological Survey officials.
As of Monday, there were 549 of the higher magnitude quakes in 2014, with 19 being magnitude 4.0 or greater.
USGS officials focused on magnitude 3.0 or greater quakes because the smaller the magnitude, the more potential there is for missing an event, USGS Geophysicist Robert Williams said.
The USGS is looking into the increase in earthquakes, mostly occurring in central and north-central Oklahoma, he said.
“Starting probably in 2009, we started to notice the jump in earthquakes, even though it was small back then, relative to 2014,” Williams said.
A new scientific group focused on studying induced seismicity has been formed. There probably are six to 10 researchers working on the issue, with about four or five working full time now, according to Williams.
(Excerpt) Read more at enidnews.com ...
Now ... “that” is the big question ... :-) ...
A few years ago, over 2500 were recorded in my neighborhood, the largest threw a large tv half way across the room. Our house is filled with stress cracks and such. There’s no cracking on my mountain.
If you look at the depth of these earthquakes, you’ll see that they are MILES below any drilling or fracking we could ever do.
Earthquakes are going to get more and more frequent. God said so.
“What do they relate to?..”
Watch the 1990 Kevin Bacon film “Tremors” for a little insight.
By the way, most of the earthquakes are at greater than three kilometers down, so it’s unlikely that fracking has anything to do with those.
The real reason these are occurring is that Texas is sick of the US and is trying to break free so that it is an island. That way the Northern border could be defended easier.
I had not heard about the tunnels under the OKC bombing site.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed there is a huge network of tunnels (including high speed trains) crossing the country, along with the obligatory ET housing and recreation. :-)
Perhaps the fracking companies were not “briefed” and have caused damage to the tunnels.
Secrecy can backfire big time.
Lubricate the faults to make earthquakes easier?
/s
If it is fracking, why aren’t these same earthquake spikes happening everywhere fracking is taking place?
Hundreds of little quakes are better than one BIG quake.
Volcanoes don’t form just on the ring of fire!
I've lived in OKC all of my 55 years. We bought earthquake insurance a couple of years after we had a pretty big quake that really shook things. If you own your home outright, you can't afford to not have earthquake insurance. $100 per year.
But yeah.... earthquakes in Oklahoma are a relatively new experience.
You’ll note in Post #21 I said there are exceptions. Just look at the USA ... you’ll find them primarily along the Ring of Fire.
If you’re talking about two plates sliding past each other at a plate boundary, that would be true, as it relieves the stresses that could build up otherwise ... but where do you find “plate boundaries” in Oklahoma? ... :-) ...
In the absence of plate boundaries, that “formula” for a lot of smaller quakes may not be true ... and thus you may, instead, be talking about a build-up towards something big.
Rare Earthquake Warning Issued for Oklahoma
http://www.livescience.com/45361-oklahoma-earthquake-risk-rising.html
Mile for mile, there are almost as many earthquakes rattling Oklahoma as California this year. This major increase in seismic shaking led to a rare earthquake warning today (May 5) from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
In a joint statement, the agencies said the risk of a damaging earthquake — one larger than magnitude 5.0 — has significantly increased in central Oklahoma.
Geologists don’t know when or where the state’s next big earthquake will strike, nor will they put a number on the increased risk. “We haven’t seen this before in Oklahoma, so we had some concerns about putting a specific number on the chances of it,” Robert Williams, a research geophysicist with the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program in Golden, Colorado, told Live Science. “But we know from other cases around the world that if you have an increasing number of small earthquakes, the chances of a larger one will go up.”
Oklahoma Grapples With Earthquake Spike—And Evidence of Industry’s Role
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/07/140731-oklahoma-earthquake-spike-wastewater-injection/
Customers who stop by Mike Kahn’s insurance agency in Oklahoma City are increasingly looking to buy a policy that was unheard of a decade ago: earthquake insurance.
Kahn, who opened the Lynnae Insurance Group in 2002, said he sold earthquake coverage to two homeowners during the first decade he was in business. During the past six months, he sold more than 125 policies.
“We used to get to that part of the policy, and I’d tell customers, ‘You don’t need that. This is Oklahoma,’” Kahn said, referring to the days when earthquake coverage was an add-on to a homeowner policy. “We used to laugh about it.”
But much has changed in Oklahoma, which leads the continental United States in earthquakes so far this year. From 1978 to 2008, Oklahoma experienced an average of one earthquake a year of magnitude 3 and higher, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. As of last week, the state experienced 258 earthquakes in that range, almost twice as many as California.
In California it is many times that.
Probably.... its $100 a year here... with like a small percent deductible.
It might be an outlier of the New Mexico volcano group.
Fracking doesn't cause earthquakes. Earthquakes are caused by tectonic plate shift.
Fracking may lubricate fault lines so that the energy stored by tectonic plate shifts is released more often, resulting in a larger number of small earthquakes.
The is a smaller number of big earthquakes: maybe one big one every 100 years or so. Which do you think people would prefer?
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