Fracking Tied to Unusual Rise in Earthquakes in U.S.

Fracking Tied to Unusual Rise in Earthquakes in U.S.

www.bloomberg.com

A spate of earthquakes across the middle of the U.S. is “almost certainly” man-made, and may be caused by wastewater from oil or gas drilling injected into the ground, U.S. government scientists said in a study.

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey said that for the three decades until 2000, seismic events in the nation’s midsection averaged 21 a year. They jumped to 50 in 2009, 87 in 2010 and 134 in 2011.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well well WELL.... (see what I did there?) Fracking is a means to an end... butcha know what? THE COSTS OFFICIALLY OUTWEIGH THE BENEFITS. This should be the nail in the coffin. Anyone who read my Santorum post should go back and reread the comments in support of fracking. Now tell me who is a paid shill for the companies now?!?! Fracking needs to stop. NOW. I ain't no 'green nut'... but this is too damning and damaging. THOUGHTS?!?!? Sound off.

www.bloomberg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I laughed when I read it. Someone on MSM was questioning the credibility of the actual source.

If it were ME? I would do controlled studies of fracking and actual increase in Seimatic activity in the fracked area. Do isolated area's as a test.

I would NOT frack wherever the heck I feel like it and see what comes out for a while. Especially considering water contamination in wells that have been undisturbed forever.

But that's just me.

Fracking is just the sacrificial lamb being offered up by TPTB-controlled MSM.

They aren't going to admit that it's tied to the approaching heavy mass object. Duh.

Maybe they want us to think the increase in EQ activity is due to fracking, when in actuality it is something much more scary that we can not control.

edit: haha, Angus beat me

Are these the same earthquakes that I keep hearing are not on the rise?

Fracking should be outlawed. Nobody hold their breath waiting for that. The drillers have already bought the governments; Feds, state and local.

Having just finished reading this article. I am disgusted, with the arrogance and stupidity of my fellow humans. From the article it seems that even our government scientists have enough evidence that fracking is causing earthquakes and instead of immediately calling for the practice to stop they issue an Orwellian and useless statement of being "Committed to monitoring."

They might as well have said that they are "committed to watch the companies continue fracking all over, until the immense slabs of bed rock making up the sub continental plates begin to be so riddled with cracks they start breaking to pieces under their own stress."

I say fine if they wait and monitor then if the earthquakes from fraking increase in intensity until it begins to cause damage and death to people then all of the the members of the EPA should be charged criminally and sued civilly personally for criminal negligence; not the government or the agency itself; but each of the useless volgon like morons running that agency.

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

Having just finished reading this article. I am disgusted

Having finished reading this article I can find nothing in it which says fracking causes earthquakes.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

 

Having just finished reading this article. I am disgusted

Having finished reading this article I can find nothing in it which says fracking causes earthquakes.

“A naturally-occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region,” Ellsworth and his colleagues wrote.

So no volcanic activity or a main shock where is the increase coming from? Since the rise in quakes is in regions where fraking is occurring and not other regions then what is causing them? The scientists are pretty sure fraking may be the likely factor. Of course I forgot you are the last bastion of science on ATS and know more then all the geologists and other scientists combined.

I am not trying to knock you, but there is enough evidence from this study to suggest if not prove a correlation between the fraking in these areas and rise in small earthquakes. Okay maybe it isn't; maybe it's just "coincidence" or some as yet unknown "natural" rise in quakes along long dead fault lines. Of course if we let the companies continue and actually fracking is causing the rise, then as fracking increases and the number of quakes increase and it finally gets to the point it's undeniable it will probably be to late. When major cities in the midwest suddenly begin experiencing some nice 7s like california and mexico it will finally be undeniable. Of course if that does happen and the companies finally do stop, the damage may already be done and irreversible.

There is enough evidence for me to say why risk it, especially when it's all being done for the profit of a few companies. At the very least enough evidence to hold a moratorium for a year or two and see if the quakes intensity begins to subside again. After all fraking is a relatively new way of gathering gas and oil, I don't see why a year or two holding off on it will actually hurt things, oh that is right it will cut into the profits of a few rich companies, and the way the world runs, it's risks be damned as long as profit can be made.

I would say there is just as much evidence for this then man made global warming, but many companies in the US already have to curtail emissions from their manufacturing plants. So, why not stop the fraking for a while and see if it has an effect. That would be science too, no?

Not surprising...this has always seemed kind of obvious and logical to me. But what do I know?

Fracking isn't good for the planet or its inhabitants in this and any number of other ways. But stupid humans will keep doing it for...money.

So far the quakes have been small and haven't caused much property damage. I don't see them doing much harm. I'm no expert at this though and I don't think anyone is. This fracking is fairly new so there's not much evidence of large quakes available yet. I read already many months ago of this relationship, I would have thought these quakes would have been discussed here six months or more ago. Or is this a new wave of discussions?

I keep thinking I sound like a broken record sometimes, putting the same information on different related sites. Oh well........ skip,,,,skip,,,, skip,,,,skip........Keep forgetting that the young might not know what a skipping record sounds like. They might say WTF is that mouse babbling about

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

The scientists are pretty sure fraking may be the likely factor. Of course I forgot you are the last bastion of science on ATS and know more then all the geologists and other scientists combined.

No.
I'm going by what the geologists say. From the original source used in the article.

We also find that there is no evidence to suggest that hydraulic fracturing itself is the cause of the increased rate of earthquakes. The fact that the disposal (injection) of wastewater produced while extracting resources has the potential to cause earthquakes has long been known. One of the earliest documented case histories with a scientific consensus of wastewater inducing earthquakes, is at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal well, near Denver. There, a large volume of wastewater was injected from 1962-1966, inducing a series of earthquakes (below magnitude 5).

www.doi.gov...

The earthquakes are caused by the injected material lubricating existing faults, causing them to slip. It only has been seen to happen at a few waste injection sites and it is not restricted to fracking fluid disposal.

reply to post by Phage


Ah...well, yes, but then again we haven't been at this for very long now for the scientists (some one payrolls and some not) to study this, have we? I still say it's logical that when you break and shake the earth, the earth breaks and shakes back. Seems like pure physics to me.

reply to post by ~Lucidity

Not really. That's not how earthquakes work.

But it does make sense that lubing existing faults would "encourage" earthquakes.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

 

The scientists are pretty sure fraking may be the likely factor. Of course I forgot you are the last bastion of science on ATS and know more then all the geologists and other scientists combined.

No.
I'm going by what the geologists say. From the original source used in the article.

We also find that there is no evidence to suggest that hydraulic fracturing itself is the cause of the increased rate of earthquakes. The fact that the disposal (injection) of wastewater produced while extracting resources has the potential to cause earthquakes has long been known. One of the earliest documented case histories with a scientific consensus of wastewater inducing earthquakes, is at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal well, near Denver. There, a large volume of wastewater was injected from 1962-1966, inducing a series of earthquakes (below magnitude 5).

www.doi.gov...

The earthquakes are caused by the injected material lubricating existing faults, causing them to slip. It only has been seen to happen at a few waste injection sites and it is not restricted to fracking fluid disposal.

Okay. Your source actually makes you sound kind of silly on one hand it says that, injecting fluids into the earth is KNOWN to trigger earthquakes, but somehow fraking which is injecting liquid into the earth, is not proven to cause quakes?

Which is it and really I don't care if fraking fluid itself is any more less likely to cause quakes, that is irrelevant, if injecting waste water; which is a liquid, into the earth is KNOWN to trigger quakes, then fraking which is injecting liquid into the earth should also be KNOWN to trigger quakes. Debating what fluid you are injecting is just seems like a semantics game to me.

These are small quakes. The Arsenal quakes were larger and involved injection of many times more (and a lot more dangerous) liquids. I'm prone to say "so what?" about this report. I experience quakes in the magnitude of the ones in Ohio at least once a week, sometimes more frequently. Depending on the epicenter in location to the house, you either feel a jolt and a wave or a jolt and a sound like somebody has just cracked the side of the house with a baseball bat.

If fracking gets tied to a 7 or 8, let me know. Oh, and for a bit of compare, contrast, and expose people's motivations... I haven't heard the anti-fracking crowd say a whole lot about the massive geothermal energy project in California which has caused quite a few larger quakes. On the cost/benefit scale, geothermal is less efficient in producing electricity than natural gas is.

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

Okay. Your source actually makes you sound kind of silly on one hand it says that, injecting fluids into the earth is KNOWN to trigger earthquakes, but somehow fraking which is injecting liquid into the earth, is not proven to cause quakes?

It's not exactly "my" source. It's the source used in the article of the OP and it says that fracking has not been found to cause earthquakes. I was accused of not agreeing with those who have done the studies. Maybe you can bring it up with them. Maybe you can find out how they make the distinction. Maybe you can find out the differences between fracking and waste injection wells. Maybe you can actually read what the original source says.

USGS scientist explains the drillin part of frackin causes small quakes,

while the pumpin wastewater process causes LARGER quakes:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools

 

Okay. Your source actually makes you sound kind of silly on one hand it says that, injecting fluids into the earth is KNOWN to trigger earthquakes, but somehow fraking which is injecting liquid into the earth, is not proven to cause quakes?

It's not exactly "my" source. It's the source used in the article of the OP and it says that fracking has not been found to cause earthquakes. I was accused of not agreeing with those who have done the studies. Maybe you can bring it up with them. Maybe you can find out how they make the distinction. Maybe you can find out the differences between fracking and waste injection wells. Maybe you can actually read what the original source says.

First of all, stop trying to be cute; if you present it as a source it is your source, you don't have to be the creator or originator of a source for it to be yours. More word games I see.

And yes I do know what waste water wells are, they are part of the process of fraking, they are holes they shoot wastewater down and then store in the fraking process and therefore a necessary part of the fraking process. To act as if it's not part of fraking or that since one part of the process of fraking is not the cause, then "fraking" is not the cause is just a word game, a deceitful one at that. If there is no fraking going on you don't need the wastewater wells in the first place. So yes despite what you are anyone want to claim one of the necessary parts of the fraking process is known to trigger quakes. No fraking no quakes.

posted earlier here
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Please add further comments to the ongoing discussion in the above linked thread.
Thanks

**Thread Closed**


for future reference:

We Have A New Search Engine--Please Use It!



Comprehensive 'Breaking Alternative News' Forum Posting Guidelines (Updated 4-15-11)
Reaffirming the "Breaking Alternative News" Forum