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The Arrival of Man-Made Earthquakes
An anonymous reader writes: The New Yorker has a long investigative report on a recent geological phenomenon: man-made earthquakes. The article describes how scientists painstakingly gathered data on the quakes, and then tried to find ways to communicate the results — which are quite definitive — to politicians who often have financial reasons to disbelieve them. Quoting: "Until 2008, Oklahoma experienced an average of one to two earthquakes of 3.0 magnitude or greater each year. (Magnitude-3.0 earthquakes tend to be felt, while smaller earthquakes may be noticed only by scientific equipment or by people close to the epicenter.) In 2009, there were twenty. The next year, there were forty-two. In 2014, there were five hundred and eighty-five, nearly triple the rate of California.
In state government, oil money is both invisible and pervasive. In 2013, Mary Fallin, the governor, combined the positions of Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Environment. Michael Teague, whom she appointed to the position, when asked by the local NPR reporter Joe Wertz whether he believed in climate change, responded that he believed that the climate changed every day. Of the earthquakes, Teague has said that we need to learn more. Fallin's first substantive response came in 2014, when she encouraged Oklahomans to buy earthquake insurance. (However, many earthquake-insurance policies in the state exclude coverage for induced earthquakes.)"
In state government, oil money is both invisible and pervasive. In 2013, Mary Fallin, the governor, combined the positions of Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Environment. Michael Teague, whom she appointed to the position, when asked by the local NPR reporter Joe Wertz whether he believed in climate change, responded that he believed that the climate changed every day. Of the earthquakes, Teague has said that we need to learn more. Fallin's first substantive response came in 2014, when she encouraged Oklahomans to buy earthquake insurance. (However, many earthquake-insurance policies in the state exclude coverage for induced earthquakes.)"
Dadburnit liberals and their commie "Global Shaking" scam.
Get off my perfectly-stable lawn!
Table-ized A.I.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" --Upton Sinclair
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line
A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California's coast.
The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the "West" which was "moving to the borders or Russia".
He has a conspiracy theory that NATO - a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members - was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America's vulnerabilities to ensure a "complete destruction of the enemy".
"Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States - a country just disappears," he said.
"Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault - 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates ... a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States."
Full story
There are fault lines in Oklahoma. There's a fairly large one that runs down from Nebraska into the eastern part of the state. It's usually pretty quiet, but every now and again you get a shift.
And the article said that they're updating fault maps - they don't have enough data.
So... are we sure these are caused by fracking? 'Cause even if you are, you'll never get Oklahomans (especially the government) to believe it.
After all, we're the state that gave you Sen. Inhofe, who still denies that climate change is happening at all (sorry about that, I didn't vote for him). We've got a lot of people employed in the Oil industry. Going against Oil here is political suicide.
Hopefully we can provide scientists enough data to prove what's going on (if it is indeed manmade) so they can use the data elsewhere. They'll make no traction here.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Repent sinners! God is angry at Oklahoma.
since the scale is logarithmic, you would need more than 3 million 2.0 earthquakes to dissipate the same energy as a single 8.5. So no, all these 2.0 or 3.0s don't make a dent in the probability of a giant 8.5
So, if the insurance company can prove the quakes were man-made, they don't have to pay out. But if they can prove it, that goes against claims by many in the state and oil industry. The oil industry would likely try to hound/silence/sue the insurance company.
If they deny a claim with loose evidence that it's man-made, the claimant could (theoretically) prove it was a natural occurrence. Because proving such is to the benefit of the oil industry, they would jump at the chance to "help", and perhaps have the state "investigate" the insurance company for fraud or questionable practices or something.
It seems to me that, despite whatever exclusions the insurance company has, they will likely pay out for any and all earthquake claims with the oil industry helping them cover that pay out behind the scenes in order to keep any proof or claims of "induced" earthquakes out of the public eye.
Without this information, it is difficult to understand whether this is just scaremongering by anti-fracking environmentalists.
You asked the right questions, but you came to the wrong conclusion. The simple fact of the matter is that we don't have this information, i.e. there are no peer reviewed studies predicting or discounting any of your three possibilities with a reasonable degree of certainty. Thus, it is entirely prudent to take precautions that would prevent a possible scenario where areas could be destabilized making a large quake more likely. If that sounds like anti-fracking scaremongering, it's because it is. It just so happens that it's a completely rational fear that has absolutely nothing to do with environmentalism as it relates to groundwater contamination.
I look at it like being on a mountain and whacking at rocks with a big mallet. Little ones, you'll almost certainly send rolling down the slope. Ones that are several dozen kilograms, it'll be hit or miss whether you'll make enough of an impact to send them down the mountainside. But giant multi-tonne boulders? You're irrelevant to them, even if they're already precariously balanced.
On the other hand, there's always the possibility that you might hit a smaller rock, sending it cascading into a bigger rock, etc, and ultimately trigger a chain reaction that was already sitting there on a knife's edge. But the odds of this, just hitting rocks at random (let alone deliberately trying to avoid precariously balanced rocks), is very low.
The amount of energy people are putting into the ground compared to the scale of the forces involved in major faults is pretty much irrelevant. Even if the fault is "ready to go", you're still hardly affecting it. There's always the chance you might start a cascade of slips... but that's unlikely, even if you weren't deliberately trying to avoid working near major faults - and drillers do try to avoid working near major faults.
Possible - but very unlikely.
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
No, it's a ridiculous claim, which is why it got so much incredulous coverage. The Yellowstone Caldera is not undergoing any unusual activity, just its normal random fluctuations, and nor is it something that even a hundred Tsar Bombas could readily destabilize.
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
Oh, definitely an 8.5 or better. After all, if I can't dump California west of the San Andreas into the sea, who's going to be interested in my new beachfont development properties of Luthorville, Luthortown, Port Luthor, Otisberg, or... wait, Otisberg?
OTIS!
The subtitle of this article does not specify that this is the arrival of the "first" manmade earthquakes as you've mistakenly interpreted. The article itself clarifies this "arrival" in the following statement (emphasis mine):
"Few noticed that Keranen and her team had gathered likely the best data we have on a new phenomenon in Oklahoma: man-made earthquakes."
In other words, STFU and RTFA, slew. I can't believe you actually wasted time googling up citations of other man-made earthquakes in support of your asinine complaint.
So if I understand this, the price of Natural gas is down, what, 80%? And now places where mostly no one lives have hundreds of itty bitty tinny tiny tremors so small that the people, that don't live there anyway, can barely detect them without specially calibrated scientific instruments. Also figure into the equation that the nearly free natural gas has allowed us to decommission coal burning plants left and right and is even threatening the economic viability of nuclear fission.
Notwithstanding the absolute fact that relying solely on a single source of power is dangerous and stupid, this seems like a pretty freaking wonderful tradeoff! Granted the media panders exclusively to the eco-terrorist agenda and anything other than a rare earth exhausting solar panel, or a bird extincting windmill is unmitigatedly evil in their narrative. But for those of us that rather like living in the first world, with reliable power at record low prices, this seems like a glass half full sort of story.
Seismic activity in Oklahoma is not caused by fracking, but by disposal wells via which truly vast quantities of water are injected into basement rock. Fracking tends to cause only very small earthquakes, while poorly placed disposal wells can lead to quakes of magnitude 3.0 - 6.0 (based on examples in TFA).
.: Semper Absurda
he simple fact of the matter is that we don't have this information, i.e. there are no peer reviewed studies predicting or discounting any of your three possibilities with a reasonable degree of certainty.
This simply isn't true (can you say astroturf?). Fracking is a complete non sequitor here; disposal wells in Oklahoma have been shown to be the primary cause of increased seismic activity there by multiple tens of peer-reviewed studies, while zero papers have reached an alternative conclusion.
.: Semper Absurda
There are some good reasons to oppose hydraulic fracturing, but "earthquakes" isn't one of them.
Guess you skipped the article, which isn't about fracking. Instead, it's about disposal wells, which unlike fracking (which as you say is linked only to very small earthquakes) have been conclusively linked to larger quakes of magnitude 3.0 - 6.0. According to TFA, there were 585 such earthquakes in Oklahoma in 2013, while there were just a few annually prior to 2008.
This is as silly as opposing windmills because an occasional bird gets wacked.
None of the scientists or Oklahoma residents quoted by TFA are "opposed" to disposal wells. They want 1) the empirical link between disposal wells which contact basement rock and seismic activity to be recognized; 2) firms to be required to investigate if their wells contact basement rock; and 3) to move wells which do in fact contact basement rock.
.: Semper Absurda
If he's let you practice humor as badly as you do, he should be disbarred.
If lawyers got to decide whats funny nobody would ever laugh.
At first, I caused the quakes to see if I could. Next I caused the quakes to extort the government for money. But anymore, I just cause the quakes to make time with The Baroness more interesting.
God spoke to me
TFA has nothing to do with fracking. It is about disposal wells. Indeed, TFA states that fracking is linked only to very small earthquakes, unlike disposal wells which have now been conclusively linked to earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 - 6.0. Further, all of the article's scientific statements are quotes from geologists who live and work in Oklahoma, or simply relate to the amount of research which has so far linked seismic activity to disposal wells.
They should take time to learn about the geology of flyover country.
You should take the time to learn something about petroleum extraction in Oklahoma.
.: Semper Absurda
1) Gallons are not a unit of energy.
2) A billion gallons of water is about the mass of a cube of rock 77 meters per side. The sort of fault that can unleash a major earthquake is hundreds of kilometers long and extends a good way through the crust.
It is the boulder. You're hitting at it with a mallet. It doesn't care.
In fact, it is significant with respect to fault forces - as demonstrated by the clear empirical link between disposal wells drilled into basement rock and seismic activity.
Link with minor quakes They are the little rocks and occasional moderate sized rock that you can actually budge with your mallet.
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
> The amount of energy people are putting into the ground compared to the scale of the forces
The "amount of energy" is already present, it's not the addition of energy. The problem is that the water being pumped in is acting as a lubricant, in ways that oil embedded shale is not so good a lubricant. The earthquakes are due to _release_ of energy, not addition of energy.
"The article describes how scientists painstakingly gathered data on the quakes, and then tried to find ways to communicate the results — which are quite definitive — to politicians who often have financial reasons to disbelieve them."
Might I suggest ... a man made earthquake where they live?
Come, Mr. Bigglesworth .... our work is done here...
The fault in Prague isn't even near an injection well. There's no way it was directly caused by wastewater injection. Now, the smaller quake that led up to it was near a wastewater injection well, and there are some who think that was the trigger, while others disagree. But that's just an example of what I mentioned in my first post, the possibility of starting a cascade. But that's not as likely even if one wasn't trying to avoid triggering sizeable faults, something that the fact that there have been so even few moderate quakes in areas with injection wells despite the vast, vast amounts of wells that have been doing this for many years.
And lets not pretend like these are the only human activities that cause earthquakes. Draining aquifers causes earthquakes. Building and filling large dams causes earthquakes. Even fluctuating reservoir levels cause earthquakes. Building very large skyscrapers causes earthquakes. Large mining projects cause earthquakes. Everything we do that adds or substracts weight from an area can trigger earthquakes. So why the focus on this particular cause? Do you mistakenly believe that this is somehow unusually severe? You talk about the merely cascaded 5,6 Prague quake that caused some damage. The 6,3 1967 Koynanagar Earthquake caused by Konya Dam killed 180 people and took out power to Bombay. Vajont Dam in Italy caused earthquakes, eventually destabilizing the slopes and sending a landslide into the filling reservoir and killing 2000 people. The 8,0 2008 Sichuan earthquake which killed 68.000 people, injured 376k people, left 5-11 million homeless was probably caused by Zipingpu Dam. Where's your outrage over this? Why all this outrage over these tiny quakes and the occasional moderate quake possibly triggered by a tiny quake, when there's far bigger induced seismicity causes out there?
Simple: it's your political view coloring your analysis of the situation.
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
BLAH BLAH "CALIFORNIA" WHATEVER. You do realize that there are these "building codes" in CA, thus why these quakes don't bother you. I work in one of the few "earthquake" proof buildings in the state, the old SABRE building at the Tulsa airport. At my apartment, on the second floor, we've watched glasses of water shake like on Jurassic Park...and we're about 100 miles from where these injection wells are. There is building damage in Pryor and other towns...a Google image search for "oklahoma earthquake damage" will show MANY houses that are damaged.
GEOLOGIST: Injection of wastewater in Oklahoma is triggering earthquakes.
POPULAR PRESS: Injection of wastewater is causing earthquakes.
ACTIVIST: Fracking causes earthquakes.
GEOLOGIST: Many small quakes relieve pressure, bigger ones inevitable but smaller, less often.
ACTIVIST GEOLOGIST: Many quakes means movement! Big one inevitable! It's our fault! Soon!
POPULAR PRESS: Mankind fucking with Earth again
GAIA: I just want to be left alone. Naasty peepl.
ARCHIMEDES: Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.
WASTEWATER INJECTION CREW: All we're doing is lubricating the lever. We did not create it.
VIRTUALLY EVERY OKLAHOMAN: No big deal.
Meanwhile,
GEOLOGIST: Depletion of groundwater creating uplift along San Adreas Fault
DESERT PERSON WITH LUSH LAWN: San Adreas is not my fault.
AGITATED FRACKING ACTIVIST: Who let that guy in anyway? We're talking about Big Oil.
MULLHOLLAND: We shall deflate the West to bring water to California.
Meanwhile,
SCIENTIST: By use of amazing technology, traces with unique Cesium-134 fingerprint of Fukushima have been detected in ocean off Vancouver.
SCIENTIST: if a person swam for six hours each day in water with Cesium levels twice as high as those found in Ucluelet, they'd receive a radiation dose that is more than 1,000 times less than that of a single dental X-ray.
INTERNET DOOMPORN STAR WITH PERFECT TEETH: This is an extinction level event! Look, a fish died in the Pacific! Salmon are misshapen! The cans are dented!
POPULAR PRESS: Mankind fucking with Earth again
GAIA: Stop the world, I want to get off!
Parturiunt Montes, Nascetur Ridiculus Mus
The mountains are in labor; an absurd mouse is the result.
~~Horace
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
the scientists on the 'environmental' side
This is a generic false equivalence which contradicts the positions of the actual Oklahoman scientists who provided the majority of the material in TFA.
In fact, these scientists all support the Oklahoma oil industry and continued injection via disposal wells. They want 1) the government to recognize the scientific evidence on the matter, 2) firms and government to investigate which wells contact basement rock and 3) firms to move wells which do in fact contact basement rock.
'harvest' the 'scientific results'
No harvesting or picking of results is possible in this particular case, because while there are ~25 studies supporting induced seismicity in Oklahoma, there are zero studies with alternate conclusions.
.: Semper Absurda