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Earthquakes That May Be Related To Fracking Close Ohio Oil Well
Frosty P writes "State leaders have ordered that four fluid-injection wells ('fracking') in eastern Ohio will be indefinitely prohibited from opening in the aftermath of heightened seismic activity in the area, an official said. A 4.0-magnitude quake struck Saturday afternoon near several wells that use 'fracking' to release oil deposits. It was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in the area."
Won't be long now till someone discovers that fracking might help turning the Big One pending into several minor quakes, and starts selling this idea.
I can understand not wanting carcinogens pumped into the water table, but the earthquake aspect seems like a non-issue to me as long as they're small. If small earthquakes are triggered, it means stresses in the fault lines were already present and are being relieved. Having a number of small earthquakes seems preferable to letting the stress build up until it triggers a large quake.
Yeah, but can you prove that the small fraking-caused quakes didn't release stress that would have caused a much more dangerous larger magnitude quake?
I'm not sure about the effect of fracking on seismic activity, but I think correlation is all we will have to infer causation as we cannot directly monitor the changes in strain which lead to seismic conditions. I would expect that the USGS would have the data for the areas where wells have been drilled, and that a study could be done to determine the probabalistic model variation, but I have not heard of such a study.
As for contamination, are the fracking fluids spiked with dye trace to be able to determine if suspected contamination occurs (and there always is some suspicion, even if there is no actual)? I don't know anything about the regulations on fracking, so I don't know if such a tracer is required. They are used quite frequently in groundwater migration applications.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I've got caviar stuck in my braces!
I really don't understand why someone like yourself - a person who lives in splendor undreamt of by most humans who ever lived - is unwilling to contribute to your community's well-being when that community is clearly in need.
Now, if you said "I don't think I should pay more taxes than people with ten times my wealth" I'd totally agree with you. But that's not what you said.
If you said "I don't want to pay for invading other countries and subsidizing rich bankster's lifestyles" I could understand that too. But you didn't say that either.
As I see it, you're wealthy enough to own stock, but you don't want to pay for the system that makes your wealth possible. Somebody's got to pay for it, but you want it to be someone else. You have enormous wealth and enjoy many privileges, yet you honestly think you're being oppressed. You personify our economic problem; you're barely one step above a welfare queen.