I live in Oklahoma where we have seen some drastic increase in earthquake activity in the last few years.
Here, as in Arkansas, there have been the largest recorded earthquakes in recorded history occurring in the last year.
The mass of dead fish in Norway (or whatever it was) over the weekend caused me to remember the dead swarms of fish and birds in Arkansas and something I heard or read linking both cases AND the quakes to fracking.
From all I can gather on my own, geologists have strong corollary links between fracking waste-water disposal and the increase in seismic activity, down to time intervals and geological depths matching.
My question is: at what point does one say “fracking water disposal causes earthquakes?”
A friend, who I might add makes a very good living working for a natural gas company, dismissed my comment linking the two as “correlation does not suggest causation.” This is true insomuch as scientifically speaking, there is nothing BUT correlations, causation is more of a philosophical practicality that relies on a presupposed causal universe with order. Technically speaking, all we have are statistical correlations that, when applied practically, means “we know this makes that happen.” There are no ”causes.” Only probabilities.
At what point is the corollary statistic high enough to just say “this causes that…?”
Do any of you have any science to back that fracking does NOT cause seismic activity? The best counter argument I can find in my own research is “yeah the data suggests fracking is the cause, but we cannot say with absolute certainty.” Which, scientifically speaking, nothing is certain. Nor will it ever be. Seems semantically moot.
Do any of you have any insight as to what caused the bird and fish die offs? There was a fish die off linked to fracking in PA as well but it’s more indirectly hypothesized: fracking causes chemicals to leech out from acid mines, and the mines caused the die-off. I cannot find any final conclusions as to what caused the bird or fish deaths in Ark. There is, however, no doubt of the extreme toxicity of the disposal water and no EPA regulations as all testing was done on the fracking injection methods, not the disposal (which is what is causing all the problems).
It’s all very interesting, especially with all our tremblors here.
I have no emotional, political or economical investment in this topic. I just think it’s interesting.
^i cited that same article. if ohio’s dep. natural resources correlates the two enough to stop action on four wells, seems like maybe it’s enough to just call it a “cause.”
I think you’re confused. They aren’t saying the disposal in to injection wells causes earthquakes, they are saying that fracking itself does. Fracking involves creating minor faults in the stone to facilitate the movement of hydrocarbon. They create the fissures, then fill them with frac fluid, which contains a proppant (usually sand) to hold the fissures open.
Disposing of flowback in an injection cavern isn’t going to cause earthquakes. They inject other stuff in there too, you know.
"Scientists have quickly determined that the likely cause was fracking—although not from drilling into deep shale or cracking it with pressured water and chemicals to retrieve natural gas. Rather, they suspect the disposal of wastewater from those operations, done by pumping it back down into equally deep sandstone.
"
Injection of water reduces the effective stress near the injection point. If this is near a fault, it will reduce the resistance to slip and, possibly, cause quakes. This is the same reason there is increased seismicity when reservoirs are filled behind dams.
In this case, the company itself (or its pet scientists) actually declared that it was “highly probable” that they’d caused earthquakes in Lancashire, and ceased fracking after the second one.
(I still don’t understand why Lancashire isn’t in the spellcheck dictionary, especially when Yorkshire is.)
Wow, I had not heard of this before (though had heard of possible earthquakes caused by fracking itself).
What are the regulations for permitting a disposal well in Ohio? We reinject here (in Alberta) as well, but permitting of injections wells is very stringent.
I just recently found out that it’s common practice in the US to send flowback and produced water to wastewater treatment plants. Crazy, and 100% illegal here, for good reason. I suppose reinjection was the next best option now that the government has caught on that treatment isn’t the best idea.
I wish flowback water recyling were a more common practice. Unfortunately, it’s still a bit too expensive.
Oh, good grief! This sounds like the gobbledegook spouted off by the tobacco companies for years. “There is no definitive research showing a direct connection between tobacco and cancer.”
File under “Y” for “Yeah, RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT.”
~VOW
Evidence does seem to be mounting that water injection is inducing earthquakes. However, keep in mind that these are tiny ones that are generally not noticeable (with some notable exceptions).
This is something to keep an eye on and take preventive measures, but they will not result in massive property damage or death.
In a very active seismic zone (like the San Andreas fault in California), severe earthquakes result when a plate moves abruptly. If the starin could be released in a series of small quakes (provoked by fracking), would this be a safe way of preventing major quakes?
From what I understand, fracking causes earthquakes by acting a lubricant between plates under pressure. My guess is, after the initial quakes occur, there won’t be more a long time, perhaps 100’s of years. Of course there is a complex system of faults and plate movement, so how easy is it to predict? It would be nice to have an expert weigh in on this.
NPR had a big story on this today (link is to their website). Their expert seemed to be saying that it is the wastewater that is causing quakes, and not the actual fracking.
That was my first thought after reading the article. Sure seems like, in this case in Ohio, the strain was relieved through small quakes now, instead of building up and having a larger quake later.
I’d be more cautious about the San Andreas fault - I could imagine this technique causing a small shift in one area, which just puts more strain on a nearby but much larger fault, causing it to shift as a result. Maybe you could say that the larger fault was going to give way anyway in the future, but you’d still have the blame for a major quake in a populous area right now.
The amount of energy released from these quakes vs. a larger one is a difference of many orders of magnitude. However, the cost of pumping is probably several orders of magnitude less than rebuilding.
However, many quakes originate at depths far exceeding what you can pump water to. Also, slip nucleation is not well understood so it’s unlikely that controlled release of strain energy would be practical on shallow faults in the near future. It certainly sounds like something that deserves some research attention though.
Considering the number of daily small earthquakes in California, it seems unlikely this would make much difference. And nobody would want to take the chance that it could trigger the big one.
the increase in quakes here in oklahoma is dramatic…
and they are noticably big tremblors with some property damage, but nothing major.
as for the waste water being treated, in PA they found the radioactivity of the water much too high to process. the stuff’s just lousy with toxins. and, according to what data i can find, the EPA did their testing on only injections during the fracking process, not on the waste-water disposal.
so all of the environmental concerns (and news of earthquakes) came after the fact.
ok, so onward and upward–
any info on the fish die-offs or birds?
most of all the linking of animal deaths to fracking is kind of a stretch…but theoretically it makes sense. it makes common sense that the extremely toxic water could leech or seep into rivers (ala the PA ordeal) and kill fish.
however, if i understand correctly, the arkansas incident was a single species of fish, indicating it was some kind of disease…
and the bird thing is kooky anyway–happening two years in a row, spooked how they were, on NYE.
dubious.
