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Oil Recovery May Have Triggered Texas Tremors
ananyo writes "First came reports of earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing and the reinjection of water during oil and gas operations. Now U.S. scientists are reporting tremors may have been caused by the injection of carbon dioxide during oil production. The evidence centers on a sudden burst of seismic activity around an old oil field in the Permian Basin in northwest Texas. From 2006 to 2011, after more than two decades without any earthquakes, seismometers in the region registered 38 tremors, including 18 larger quakes ranging from magnitude 3 to 4.4, scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The tremors began just two years after injections of significant volumes of CO2 began at the site, in an effort to boost oil production. 'Although you can never prove that correlation is equal to causation, certainly the most plausible explanation is that [the tremors] are related to the gas injection,' says Cliff Frohlich, a seismologist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics in Austin, who co-authored the study."
AC, you miss-spelled "environment" -better luck next time!
-KD
Graboids!
captcha: "bedrock".. Lol.
Had profit.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Until you figure out why CO2 injection causes problems at one oilfield, and not its neighbors, even though all of them have had similar amounts of CO2 injected, it seems rather more likely than not that the CO2 injection had nothing to do with the tremors.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I know it's a philosophy of science tangent, but this quote caught my attention. I mean in a strict sense, nothing is "proven" in science, so it's technically true. However, to the extent to which concepts can be "scientifically proven", the difference between correlation and causation comes down to one factor: controls. In experimental science, we control for variables by limiting the systems in play directly. In observational science, that's done with statistical controls on other known (and possible) factors. With enough data, that can be done in a manner that is robust enough to be called science.
I don't think it's fair to take a benign assertion like "correlation is not causation" and extend it to an absolutist position.
Nothing stands in the way of oil profits. Not even lives.
My personal favorite bit is that the fracking guys are exempt from the clean air and clean water acts. Thats some style there.
Disgusting and sick.. But style. An evil you can remember.
Although you can never prove that correlation is equal to causation... we're going to run with it because it works for us.
Got it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You've pumped oil out from under the ground. That leaves a big ass hole. Perhaps the hole is changing shape because it is no longer supported?
Sorry, I just installed new subwoofers and was seeing how loud I could get them to thump.
One thing I wonder as people talk about this. Now, I am no geologist but, my understanding of fault lines is that there are areas where tectonic plates cross, with one moving over the top of the other, pushing one down and one up. So far so good right?
So the model I have understood is, the fault compresses over time as the plates move, and then an earth quake happens when the stress is suddenly released, allowing the plates to slip some amount, relieving the stress and starting the process over again from its new position.
So now if this is an accurate enough description of the process, it seems to me like more frequent, smaller quakes are likely preferable to less frequent larger ones. So could this triggering of earth quakes actually be a....good thing? Is that question even being asked?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Obviously God is punishing Texas
megacorps never listen.everything from cigarettes to global warming and fracking have all seemed to have this pattern:
1. new technology or idea proposed with limited research. it gets pushed hard by megacorps who want cash.
2. problems arise such as seismic disturbance, gas in the water supply, etc.
3. industry reacts immediately and violently to the concerns of regular citizens. everything classified as an 'isolated event' and media is threatened with advertising boycott if they report too much about it.
4. mounting evidence suggests new technology is dangerous and has negative consequences.
5. industry responds insisting everything is OK.
6. more evidence mounts, legislation gets proposed to curtail the technology and enact regulation
7. industry pushes back with FUD and insists the effects are 'controversial' and 'unknown' with relation to the technology but that regulation is not the answer because jobs..
8. deaths, major accidents, and environmental impacts are being seen.
9. Industry starts gladhanding senators and congressmen to ensure interests are seen to. senators, as usual, are familiar with ignoring constituents with less than a million dollars.
10. industry no longer formally responds to complaints. evidence consists solely of legislation they crafted and enacted to support their industry.
11. industry pulls out after investment potential is exhausted or litigation expenses become annoying. pack up, move out, and assign a 'vacant trust' to the property to ensure superfund only kicks taxpayers in the beanbag.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Gotta get that sweet black nectar no matter any collateral damage
20-30 years isn't a fly's squat in Geological time. Stating "we haven't had x event happen in a few decades" means nothing. Come up with something more than conjecture.
For the record I'm a liberal democrat but even I have my limits on joining hate the drillers hyperbole.
'Twas graboids. And you can take that to the bank.
Graboids could have migrated to Texas.
But that can't be! Kevin Bacon killed them all in the end...oh, wait...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Back in the 1960's this was brought up with wastewater wells.
Geologists are not sure if the small quakes prevented a larger one, or lead up to a larger one.
On a somewhat related note, if you want to see why wastewater wells near fault lines are bad, ask Oklahoma with 300+ earthquakes in just a few years.
http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/man-made-earthquakes/
"When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money."
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I can attest that a 3 to a 4.4 is a sleep-through earthquake. On the other hand fracking is bring down the price of natural gas and helping poor people so the cost to benefit ratio is in fracking's favor.
Oil Recovery May Have Triggered Texas Tremors
Makes it sound like the oil was always ours and the Earth stole it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Earthquakes reported in Denver area were always reported as due to oil drilling, and this was in the 1980's. So what is new?
I would like to know what are the various possible explanations for the tremors, and the rubric used for evaluating the relative plausibility of those explanations, so that we can all evaluate Mr. Frohlich's opinion that gas injection is "certainly" the cause of the tremors.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
we have always had earthquakes. We are on the great plains, but underneath those plains believe it or not is a mountain range, and those mountains can have earthquakes!
If you ever go through West Texas, perhaps on the way to Arizona or Colorado, much of it is a barren wasteland. In some places, the only green growth was around degraded oil spills.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". I guess thats what they're saying !
I didn't understand what a Tremor was... image-
I lived in Lubbock TX, 84.7 miles from Snyder TX, for 50 yrs (until just a few months ago).
In all that time I only experienced two tremors, both in the early 90's. I read the actual article, and I don't know where they got that data but it's totally incorrect.
I, nor no one I know felt anything from any of these. The only two that were humanly detectable both had epicenters (which aren't on that list) near Albuquerque NM over 500 miles away and they claimed at the time they were about 3.5 magnitude and yet this article claims neither of them even happened. Amazing that some of these lists claim so many 3.5's so close and yet they weren't noticeable. Someone one is fudging the data; or more likely everyone is fudging the data. Researchers to get funding, pundits to support pork barrels for contrib money, etc etc. This is nothing but a play for money.
So I noticed 3.5 quakes centered in Albuquerque NM 500 miles away (featured in local news casts), but failed to notice dozens of 3 and higher less than 100 miles away (which also failed to make any local news at all)? BS.
"Although you can never prove that correlation is equal to causation, certainly the most plausible explanation is that correlation is equal to causation."
There, fixed the quote...
1. The end of the world is nigh and the Big J is coming (oil/gas backers view)
2. Fracking is causing this.
Choose one. Because climate change is now, and sticking your head in the tar sands won't change that basic fact.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
if everything goes awry and they manage to destroy the area, this could become a cautionary tale. we can only hope politicians have the insight and backbone to act when it other shoe drops.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I thought that Japanese conspiracy theorist was nut when he was claiming the Fukushima quake was caused by injection of CO2.
The same thing happens when water is pumped deep underground during geothermal energy production. But nobody objects to that.
...are having a much greater affect on the state of things underground than pumping CO2 into the ground.Yet nobody wants to look into that because they all want to beat up on the petroleum industry instead... that's much more fashionable.
It was actually kinda interesting the evening of the OKC quake that we felt here in north central Texas. The water in our swimming pool did a really cool sloshing back and forth number, the likes of which I'd never seen before.
...put a fork in the idea of CO2 "sequestering".
Hold on tight a big ole 3.0 earthquake might almost be felt, or worse yet, knock over a lawn chair,if it's already leaning. The theory is shaky at best, but even if it were entirely true lubricating a fault would mean more frequent less severe earthquakes, I will take constant 3.0 earthquakes over a once in a lifetime 8 thank you.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
...can't be all that bad. Maybe it is their supreme being punishing them? For what they have done to textbooks, they should be punished. Keep on fracking and keep those earthquakes coming to Texas, please!
So, did they just invent a way to relieve pressure on faults before it builds up enough to cause a large earthquake?
I only have an undergrad degree in Geology, so I'm not an expert by any means.... But I could see that pumping in CO2 into a carbonate-rich environment such as the Permian Basin could possibly mix with groundwater or other interstitial water and form some carbonic acid which would eat away any of the limestone, especially at the cracks where the liquid could reach. For some reason, people get surprised when the land below them shakes and fractures because of pumping some type of liquid at high pressures. This basin has been around for 250 million years, settling over time. How can you not expect something to happen?
If you are going to separate cause and effect by a couple of years, why not separate them by 50?
I've often wondered why we don't have more events when we suck huge volumes of virtually uncompressible substance out of the ground and don't replace it with something else that can exert the same force. Only the fact that it there is a huge lack of evidence to the contrary makes me think I'm missing something.
Disclaimer: I didn't RTA neither did I CTIWRI - I just presumed that since this is a single event location it's going to be really hard to correlate against other cases, so therefore choose your pet excuse and make it work. Don't worry about the random amount of time between the cause and effect, we'll just attribute that to some "chronic effect".
The reason why smoking and cancer were tied together so effectively was the number of incidents.
To me, this one seems to embody the old ironic adage: "All Indians walk in single file; I know, I saw one!"