Most recent earthquakes in North Texas happened close to injection wells used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling in the region, according to new research.
A two-year study by the University of Texas at Austin also found that the relatively minor temblors happened more often than indicated in previous investigations.
The UT study, published this week in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” is the latest to suggest a link between drilling and seismic activity.
“You can’t prove that any one earthquake was caused by an injection well,” said Cliff Frohlich, the University of Texas researcher who conducted the study. “But it’s obvious that wells are enhancing the probability that earthquakes will occur.”
A U.S. Geological Survey report released earlier this year found that an increase in small temblors throughout the Midwest coincides with the injection of drilling wastewater in deep disposal wells. An Ohio state agency concluded in March that a wastewater injection well was responsible for a dozen earthquakes in Youngstown last year. And in June, the National Research Council released a report concluding that while there is a low risk of earthquakes directly tied to oil and gas drilling techniques, underground wastewater injections pose a higher risk of triggering seismic activity.
Drilling companies have said they do not believe earthquakes are linked to injection wells.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
Correlation != causation.
“But it’s obvious that wells are enhancing the probability that earthquakes will occur.”
Let me translate:
“We can’t think of any other reason for the temblors, so it must be the drilling.”
even if true, using the term ‘drilling’ is highly misleading. It isn’t the drilling, it’s the cramming a lot of stuff under a lot of pressure (injection). Logic says something has to give.
Calling these minor temblors “earthquakes” is misleading. This minor seismic activity causes no damage and, with rare exceptions, can be detected only with sensitive monitoring equipment.
add to that, that injecting what amounts to lubricants into the strata may be releasing building fault pressures and thus saving us from a very large quake. Yet no one makes mention of that positive feature.
they talk about a couple of quakes at 3.4 and 4+ levels, but then go right on to say no one can couple them to any wells or drilling. Maybe they should have noted that the sun rose that morning in the east… but we still don’t have enough data to link the two events; however, there is a suggestion that they may be coupled. [post hoc, ergo prompter hoc].
I am so tired of these lame-assed attempts to connect ANY disaster to fracking so it can be shut down and save the dirt. What a bunch of morons.