New Study Claims Fracking Leads to More Earthquakes

[n2doc]

DASHIELL BENNETT 3:28 PM ET
A new study published today in the journal Science has uncovered even more evidence that there is a direct link between hydraulic fracking for underground natural gas and small earthquakes near the site of the wells. Even more remarkable is that the earthquakes are not triggered by the drilling itself, but by even larger earthquakes reverberating from the other side of the world. The fracking is merely the mechanism that primes the area for a quake.

According to a review of the study by Mother Jones, areas with "high subsurface fluid pressures" (e.g., underneath volcanoes and geysers) are already known to see an increase in seismic activity when massive earthquakes strike, even when the pressure occurs naturally and those earthquakes are very far away. The effect takes months to develop as the shockwaves from the bigger quake move slowly under the Earth's surface, so the connection between tremors in say, China and Wyoming, won't be obvious to casual observers.

But since one of the byproducts of fracking is increased fluid pressure from water that's injected into the ground as part of the process, it can make fault lines near the fracking site more unstable. (Check out the cool Mother Jones .gif for a demonstration.) Then all it takes is the trigger of a large seismic event and a previously stable fault, weakened by fracking, starts to shake.



For example, the study claims there's a direct link between the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan in 2011 (the same one that caused the devastating tsunami and nearly destroyed the Fukishima nuclear power plant) and a smaller, 4.5-magnitude quake in Texas six months later. The Texas quake happened in an area with a large concentration of hydraulic fracking injection wells. The study also claims that a noticeable spike in mid-continent U.S. earthquakes over the last decade is at least partially attributable to human activity.

more

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/07/new-study-claims-fracking-leads-more-earthquakes/67097/

[Ilsa]

1. Fracking supporters just deny it.

They'll play that part of FrackNation with only one expert on the subject. Never mind what other scientists are saying.

[Blanks]

2. Franking is gonna kill us all. We've had earthquakes in Arkansas where there's franking. eom

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Distant Quakes Trigger Tremors at U.S. Waste-Injection Sites, Says Study

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3107

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Distant Quakes Trigger Tremors at U.S. Waste-Injection Sites, Says Study[/font]
[font size=4]Finding Could Help Identify Critically Stressed Faults[/font]
2013-07-11

[font size=3]Large earthquakes from distant parts of the globe are setting off tremors around waste-fluid injection wells in the central United States, says a new study. Furthermore, such triggering of minor quakes by distant events could be precursors to larger events at sites where pressure from waste injection has pushed faults close to failure, say researchers.

Among the sites covered: a set of injection wells near Prague, Okla., where the study says a huge earthquake in Chile on Feb. 27, 2010 triggered a mid-size quake less than a day later, followed by months of smaller tremors. This culminated in probably the largest quake yet associated with waste injection, a magnitude 5.7 event which shook Prague on Nov. 6, 2011. Earthquakes off Japan in 2011, and Sumatra in 2012, similarly set off mid-size tremors around injection wells in western Texas and southern Colorado, says the study. The paper appears this week in the leading journal Science, along with a series of other articles on how humans may be influencing earthquakes.

"The fluids are driving the faults to their tipping point," said lead author Nicholas van der Elst, a postdoctoral researcher at Columba University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "The remote triggering by big earthquakes is an indication the area is critically stressed."

Tremors triggered by distant large earthquakes have been identified before, especially in places like Yellowstone National Park and some volcanically active subduction zones offshore, where subsurface water superheated by magma can weaken faults, making them highly vulnerable to seismic waves passing by from somewhere else. The study in Science adds a new twist by linking this natural phenomenon to faults that have been weakened by human activity.

…[/font][/font]

[Champion Jack]

4. Radioactive drill cuttings, poisoned water, property values dropping like rocks, constant noise...

Air pollution, road destruction and congestion by trucks never intended for these roads, lethal explosions and fires.....now add earthquakes .
What's not to like about Fracking?

[Bill USA]

5. recommended.