USGS: Oil and Gas Operations Could Trigger Large Earthquakes

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 23, 2015 @03:27AM from the now-there's-some-economic-stimulus dept.

sciencehabit writes: The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has taken its first stab at quantifying the hazard from earthquakes associated with oil and gas development. The assessment, released in a preliminary report today, identifies 17 areas in eight states with elevated seismic hazard. And geologists now say that such induced earthquakes could potentially be large, up to magnitude 7, which is big enough to cause buildings to collapse and widespread damage. Update: 04/23 15:56 GMT by T : New submitter truavatar adds: At the same time, the Oklahoma Geological Survey released a statement explicitly calling out deep wastewater injection wells to Oklahoma earthquakes, stating "The OGS considers it very likely that the majority of recent earthquakes, particularly those in central and north-central Oklahoma, are triggered by the injection of produced water in disposal wells."

1 of 171 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Zero damage by Anonymous Coward · 2015-04-23 04:59 · Score: 0, Troll

More hyperbole from the leftists. Large earthquakes cannot occur at the shallow depth of drilling. Minor ones, maybe. There is been $0 in earthquake damages since the start of the fracking revolution 10 years ago. You can't get around that.