No evidence that fracking – where chemicals are pumped into rock – has caused rise in man-made quakes, research shows
America’s oil and natural gas boom has led to a “remarkable” rise in earthquakes in the middle of the country, the US Geological Survey said on Wednesday. But scientists said the man-made quakes were not directly caused by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves pumping chemicals and water deep into underground rock formations.
“We don’t find any evidence that fracking is related to any of these magnitude 3 earthquakes that we have been studying,” Bill Ellsworth, the USGS seismologist leading the study of man-made quakes, told a conference call with reporters. “We simply don’t see any evidence that fracking is related to earthquakes that are of concern to people.”
However, he said there were a few instances when waste water wells, in which chemicals used in fracking are injected deep underground, had triggered seismic activity.
Ellsworth set off a man-made quake of his own a few days ago in a report on NPR about his forthcoming study, to be presented at the annual meeting of seismologists in San Diego on Wednesday evening.
The study found a sixfold increase in man-made quakes in an area including Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas against the 20th century average, the increase taking place over a 10-year period starting in 2001. The quakes were small, a magnitude just over 3.0, but there were even more of them after 2009, which corresponded with a sharp rise in natural gas drilling around the country.
“A remarkable increase in the rate of (magnitude 3) and greater earthquakes is currently in progress,” Ellsworth and his colleagues wrote in a summary of the study.
“While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production,” the abstract said.
Islam believes that women’s immodest clothing causes earthquakes (makes Gaia jealous). So it is the flood of strippers following the oil booms that are causing the quakes.
Once again we see a lot of “could be,” “it seems,” etc. in this so-called study. It is possible, but they present no hard facts to support the supposition. Here we go again.