Guess you'd better make sure your homeowners covers E-Quakes if you're in central Ok

aurorasooner · Mar 10, 2015

and you can bet any earthquake insurance will be more expensive there after these maps come out later this year.

Reawakened' faults could trigger big Okla. earthquakes

Long-dormant, 300-million-year-old fault lines across Oklahoma are being "reawakened" by recent small earthquakes that have been previously linked to fracking, scientists reported in a new study out this week. The faults could trigger much higher-magnitude and more destructive quakes than most of the smaller ones that have plagued the state in recent years, according to the new research.
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Though not the central point of this study, previous research has identified hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as a likely cause of the more than 3,600 small earthquakes that rattled central Oklahoma from 2009 through 2014. Fracking is a method of extracting natural gas and oil from rock that lies deep underground.

"By identifying the faults, we are providing some guidance about where major earthquakes can happen," said Dan McNamara, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., and lead author of the new study.
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The study findings will be used to develop a new earthquake-hazard map for Oklahoma that the geological survey is planning to issue later this year. It will mark the first time the state's earthquake hazard maps will include suspected human-induced earthquakes.
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"The work is fundamentally sound and done by several of the top people in the field," said earthquake expert John Vidale, a seismologist from the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study.
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"When one looks closely enough at the recent plague of earthquakes, they are on faults, and shallow enough to be plausibly affected by fluid injection (from the fracking process)," Vidale said.

The study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/10/oklahoma-earthquakes-fault-lines/24702741/

hawaii 5-0 · Mar 11, 2015

Re: Guess you'd better make sure your homeowners covers E-Quakes if you're in central

I was told by someone in the business that fracking doesn't cause quakes.

Is it possible to fill the swiss cheese ?

5-0

Skysooner · Mar 11, 2015

Re: Guess you'd better make sure your homeowners covers E-Quakes if you're in central

hawaii 5-0 said: ↑

I was told by someone in the business that fracking doesn't cause quakes.

Is it possible to fill the swiss cheese ?

5-0
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That person is wrong. Fracking can cause earthquakes although very local and all that I have heard of have been below 3.0 magnitude. They can be predicted, but we are still learning how to do it for local areas.

aurorasooner · Apr 1, 2015

Re: Guess you'd better make sure your homeowners covers E-Quakes if you're in central

I guess the Okla Geological Survey (and this guy Holland) is/are taking a beating in the press lately.

http://www.businessinsider.com/oklahoma-scientists-fracking-and-earthquakes-2015-3

Bloomberg reports that a representative from a major oil company told an Oklahoma scientist, Austin Holland, to "be careful when publicly discussing the possible connection between oil and gas operations and a big jump in the number of earthquakes" back in 2013.
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According to Bloomberg, and previous reports from Energy Wire, which first reported on the pressure on Oklahoma scientists, the Oklahoma Geological Survey has been very slow to react to new evidence that the earthquakes might be tied to fracking's wastewater disposal.
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The problem, of course, is that there's a pretty big conflict of interest for the state of Oklahoma, which employs Holland, and presumably a lot of pressure to be skeptical. The oil and gas industry — which use a lot of hydraulic fracturing these days — accounts for somewhere between 15 and 20% of all jobs in Oklahoma, based on the reports of Energy Wire and Bloomberg.
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Even when earthquakes appeared strongly correlated to wastewater injection, OGS has been reluctant to discuss a connection. In September 2013 a new disposal well was turned on in Love County in southern Oklahoma. Soon, quakes began to jolt the area, sometimes several a day.

The well reached its peak daily injection of more than 9,000 barrels of wastewater on Sept. 20, 2013. Three days later the area experienced a magnitude 3.4 quake, moving furniture inside homes and knocking down a chimney. Injection at the well was curtailed, then stopped altogether. The seismic activity dipped almost immediately.

Still, the OGS hesitated to link the two. “We cannot rule out that this observation could be simply a coincidence,” Holland wrote in a report a week later. In early October, Holland spoke at a town hall meeting in Love County, where he again said no conclusions could be drawn about the cause of the quakes.

All of this said, Holland "recently told Bloomberg that the vast majority of the increase in earthquakes is due to the injection of oil and gas wastewater" and "bristles at any suggestion that industry pressure slowed him from reaching that conclusion."
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and I do wonder how the Okla State Supreme Court is going to rule in this case, and will this case eventually be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court by the loser, either the oil/gas industry or the enviromentalist lobby.

Article from OilPrice.com and reprinted in the Motley fool.

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...ake-case-could-doom-fracking-in-oklahoma.aspx

The rise in earthquakes as a result of fracking poses a massive problem for the oil and gas industry.
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The oil and gas industry in Oklahoma has downplayed the induced seismicity from disposal wells, but the frequency of earthquakes – rising to several earthquakes each day – has become too hard to ignore. That is leading to the prospect of a flurry of lawsuits against fracking companies. Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR ) , one of the most active companies in Oklahoma, even included legal action and state regulation related to seismic activity on its list of risks in its financial statements.
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One case in particular could determine how bad costs could get for the industry. A woman named Sandra Ladra has brought a case against two oil companies -- New Dominion and Spess Oil Co. -- after her chimney collapsed amid a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, and the falling bricks severely injured her. The 2011 earthquake was the strongest in Oklahoma history and destroyed 13 homes. A 2013 peer-reviewed study pointed to injection wells nearby that were used to dispose of fracking wastewater as the cause of the earthquake.

The Ladra case has now moved to the state supreme court. A court ruling in her favor will amount to a huge blow to the industry statewide, raising costs of operating and possibly contributing to a significant reduction in drilling over the long term.
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Also an interesting article.

New rules for oil and gas companies

Research links earthquakes to disposal wells

http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/new-rules-oil-and-gas-companies/nkjmt/

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