Arkansas Earthquakes Could Be Man-Made

oxide7 writes "The small earthquakes that struck north central Arkansas could be from a combination of natural and man-made activity. Some experts think that pumping water into the ground as part of the extraction process of natural gas could cause local seismic events."

Comments

Re:That's OK.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Magnitude 4 seismic events are of relatively little concern, in the scheme of things; but the water pollution that has resulted is more serious.

There is a more serious governance/philosophical issue at work, though. These sorts of energy extraction operations, whether they be hydrofracking gas, doing the assorted horrid things required to get tar sands and oil shales flowing, or mountaintop removal, all involve the extraction company imposing (often quite significant, sometimes fatal) externalities on the people in a broad swath around them. Generally, these externalities are not compensated. That's how pollution goes.

When a price needs to be paid, two things matter: "How big is it?" and "How will it be allocated?". At present, while the jury may still be out on the size of the bill, the method of allocation appears, at first approximation, to be "Suck it, peasants, costs will be imposed as is most profitable for your betters!".

Such a cost allocation scheme really ought to have no friends anywhere on the political spectrum. The reasons for liberal opposition should be so obvious as to no need mention. For conservatives or libertarians, such rampant imposition of externalities on other people's persons and properties should be recognized as making a mockery of man's right to person and property, and the state's legitimate role in preserving the same.

We must be careful that, in attempting to break our dependence on kleptocratic energy-despotic hellholes, we do not allow ourselves to become one...

Of course the quakes are man-made.

[Seumas]

Everyone knows that the government has developed several variations on Tesla's earthquake machines (HAARP, etc) and has been using them all over the world (Haiti, anyone?) to cause "natural" disasters. Sheesh!

Re:Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake

[MrNemesis]

For an even more impressive example, read about the Vajont Dam in Italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam

An engineering marvel for its time, the dam was built based on shoddy geology - there was a faultline running up one side of the adjacent mountain. In a nutshell, filling up the dam forced water into the fault, which eventually caused half the mountain to fall into the dam. The dam was well built enough to not break - but the water spilled out over the top and killed about 2000 people.

However, the hand-wringing of the article is a bit unwarranted. It's well known that pumping stuff in and out of rock is bound to cause seismic instabilities. Magnitude 4-5 stuff (assuming they mean moment magnitude? They don't say) is generally considered small fry.