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The Research Evidence
I think it's really hard to deny there's a connection when the frequency of Arkansas earthquakes dropped by two-thirds when the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission banned fracking (see www.huffingtonpost.com...). Note that they didn't stop entirely, which suggests that fault disruption may persist even after fracking stops.
Braxton County West Virginia also experienced a marked reduction in their quakes after the West Virginia Oil and Gas Commission forced fracking companies to cut back on the pressu
Hydraulic fracturing, often called fracking, fracing[a] or hydrofracking, is the process of initiating and subsequently propagating a fracture in a rock layer, employing the pressure of a fluid as the source of energy.[1] The fracturing, known as a frack job (or frac job),[2][3] is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations, in order to increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of oil and natural gas and coal seam gas. Hydraulic fractures may be natural or created by human activity, and are extended by internal fluid pressure which opens the fracture and causes it to extend through the rock. Natural hydraulic fractures include igneous dikes, sills and fracturing by ice as in frost weathering. Man-made fluid-driven fractures are formed at depth in a borehole and extend into targeted formations. The fracture width is typically maintained after the injection by introducing a "proppant" into the injected fluid. Proppant is a material, such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates, that prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped.
According to geologists, it isn't the fracking itself that is linked to earthquakes, but the re-injection of waste salt water (as much as 3 million gallons per well) deep into rock beds. Braxton County West Virginia (160 miles from Mineral) has experienced a rash of freak earthquakes (eight in 2010) since fracking operations started there several years ago. According to geologists fracking also caused an outbreak of thousands of minor earthquakes in Arkansas (as many as two dozen in a single day). It's also linked to freak earthquakes in Texas, western New York, Oklahoma and Blackpool, England (which had never recorded an earthquake before). Industry scientists deny the link to earthquakes, arguing that energy companies have been fracking for nearly sixty years. However it's only a dozen years ago that "slick-water fracks" were introduced. This form of fracking uses huge amounts of water mixed with sand and dozens of toxic chemicals like benzene, all of which is injected under extreme pressure to shatter the underground rock reservoir and release gas trapped in the rock pores. Not only does the practice utilize millions of gallons of freshwater per frack (taken from lakes, rivers, or municipal water supplies), the toxic chemicals mixed in the water to make it "slick" endanger groundwater aquifers and threaten to pollute nearby water-wells. Horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracking (which extend fractures across several kilometres) were introduced in 2004.
Number of Earthquakes in the United States for 2000 - 2011 Located by the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center
Originally posted by Daedal
reply to post by N34Li3Z
Stole my thread huh