(Another) Study Finds Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes
August 6, 2012 at 3:35 PM Leave a comment
I think this is the third or fourth study confirming a link between fracking and earthquakes:
(Image via SummitCountyVoice.com)
Correlation Between Injection Wells and Small Earthquakes Discovered
Most earthquakes in the Barnett Shale region of North Texas occur within a few miles of one or more injection wells used to dispose of wastes associated with petroleum production such as hydraulic fracturing fluids, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin. None of the quakes identified in the two-year study were strong enough to pose a danger to the public.
The study by Cliff Frohlich, senior research scientist at the university’s Institute for Geophysics, appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“You can’t prove that any one earthquake was caused by an injection well,” says Frohlich. “But it’s obvious that wells are enhancing the probability that earthquakes will occur.”
Frohlich analyzed seismic data collected between November 2009 and September 2011 by the EarthScope USArray Program, a National Science Foundation-funded network of broadband seismometers from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the high density of instruments (25 in or near the Barnett Shale), Frohlich was able to detect earthquakes down to magnitude 1.5, far too weak for people to feel at the surface.
I swear, oil and gas companies being allowed to run roughshod over this planet.
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