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I’m no anti-fracking lunatic...but I believe there is a connection.

Now, its important to differentiate between fracking and injection wells. The actual fracking hasn’t caused any earthquakes in Oklahoma...but disposing of fluids in injection wells may have. There has been enough anectdotal evidence to mean that a causal relationship is not out of the question.

But the real question is - are injection wells causing the earthquakes, or merely allowing them to happen. I use the ‘relay’ theory. For example, when you turn the key of a car, you are not physically closing the circuit that makes the starter turn...rather you are closing a much lower amp circuit that energizes a relay...and it is the relay closing that closes the starter circuit and makes it turn. I think injection wells are really just ‘relays’ that allow the much higher energy earthquake to happen - IOW, I don’t think it at all possible that a few hundred trucks pumping fluid in the ground contains enough energy to be felt in an earthquake 400 miles away. Instead, I believe this is the earth’s energy, potential energy from tectonic plates pressing onto each other...that is the energy that once unleashed can be felt 400 miles away. And the injection wells somehow set up a situation to release that energy - maybe its as simple as lubrication, maybe the fluid causes some layer of earth to shrink or swell...who knows.

Now, are these earthquakes necessarily bad? Well, if my ‘relay’ theory is correct...and the wells aren’t introducing appreciable amounts of energy into the earth, but only unleashing existing energy...the answer is a definite NO!, these aren’t bad at all. It would mean that the dozen medium sized earthquakes caused by injection each year in OK would not happen...and that energy would just keep building, and building, until 10-20 years down the road it is unleashed violently after a huge build up of energy.

Looked at that way, I could argue that injection wells are actually beneficial.