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USGS: Oil and Gas Operations Could Trigger Large Earthquakes
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."
Good luck getting a penny in compensation out of the corporations responsible if this happens.
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As a favorite author liked to say, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Unfortunately we are very poor at evaluating externalized costs. The pollution put out by coal plants that are "far enough" away from cities, the fish that are killed by hydroelectric damns, the excess carbon produced by all fossil fuels, and now the potential for damaging earthquakes from large scale oil and gas operations.
Of course the first ones to ignore externalized costs are the business offloading those costs on everyone else. And if a magnitude 7 quake gets triggered and people get hurt or killed (potentially dozens or hundreds of people in the US and possibly many more in less developed areas) the corporations responsible ought to be liable for millions or billions of dollars. But if necessary they'll lawyer up for a fraction of the cost and drag the issue out in court for years until everyone forgets. After all, how do you prove that this particular quake wouldn't have happened without drilling? And how do you prove which company's actions triggered the quake?
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You don't think the oil and gas industry hasn't spent millions of dollars to try to say that fracking is perfectly safe and couldn't possibly cause any harm?
Basically they've done what the tobacco industry did .. delay, obfuscate, and claim that it's up to someone else to prove it's dangerous while they assume it's safe without evidence.
You don't think a massive lobbying, PR, and fake science campaign isn't an actual conspiracy?
Because, really, what they're doing is lying to the public, reaping billions in profits, and then claiming that everything they're doing is perfectly safe.
Which, of course, is increasingly proven to be bullshit.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...
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. Including smaller earthquakes in the count, there were more than five thousand. This year, there has been an average of two earthquakes a day of magnitude 3.0 or greater.
The first case of earthquakes caused by fluid injection came in the nineteen-sixties. Engineers at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical-weapons manufacturing center near Commerce City, Colorado, disposed of waste fluids by injecting them down a twelve-thousand-foot well. More than a thousand earthquakes resulted, several of magnitudes close to 5.0. “Unintentionally, it was a great experiment,” Justin Rubinstein, who researches induced seismicity for the U.S.G.S., told me.
The oil and gas industry are merely trying to relieve "earth tension". The planet Earth is tense... and needs a good massage. We'll thank them later.
They're not shell corporations; they're legitimately owned and operated by other parties, who gladly take the profit.
Fracking has been going on for nearly 50 years.
But now...NOW, it's causing earthquakes.
I see.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Let's try injecting water into some California fault, safely out in the desert, to see if a major fault can be moved using this technique. I know that the state doesn't have any water to spare at the moment, but we can use treated wastewater or other "junk" water for the experiment.
You don't think the oil and gas industry hasn't spent millions of dollars to try to say that fracking is perfectly safe and couldn't possibly cause any harm?
Of course they have. You'd have to be living under a rock with your fingers in your ears to think otherwise.
Basically they've done what the tobacco industry did .. delay, obfuscate, and claim that it's up to someone else to prove it's dangerous while they assume it's safe without evidence.
More or less, yes this is exactly what they are doing. The playbook is almost identical. Claim that there is insufficient proof, ask for more studies (funded by them frequently), hire "experts" to promote their viewpoint, hire politicians to hinder any regulations, etc. Take the tobacco PR playbook, scratch out tobacco and write in fossil fuels and that is almost exactly what they are doing.
You don't think a massive lobbying, PR, and fake science campaign isn't an actual conspiracy?
I think it is a rather clear and unsurprising expression of economic self interest which in many cases is contrary to the public interest. I don't think you need to invoke some grand conspiracy theory to understand their actions though I would not be shocked to find out that there was some fossil fuel companies acting illegally in cahoots. Anything that makes it more expensive to drill/refine/sell, increases regulation or reduces fossil fuel use is likely to be opposed by producers of fossil fuels. They all know they basically think the same way on the topic so they're all behaving more or less as expected.
That could cost oil companies and farmers more money. It is likely the waste will have to purified like sewage into clean water and toxic solid waste.
Unfortunately this announcement comes from the executive branch of the US government.
So what? Either the facts support the claims or they do not. Who it is from is irrelevant to its veracity. There is a reason we insist that scientific findings be repeatable so that others may confirm the findings. The fact that a government agency is involved is irrelevant to the scientific process.
Many of us have developed zero trust in anything coming from DC.
So even if what they are saying is actually true, you plan to dismiss it out of hand because you dislike government in general. This in spite of the fact that you provided no actual reason to dispute the conclusions reached in the study nor any articulated reason to think the USGS is being dishonest in any way.
Fracking has been going on for nearly 50 years.
But only fairly recently has it been employed in large scale in the relevant area. It wasn't economically feasible in lots of cases due to the availability of much easier and cheaper sources of oil and gas.
But now...NOW, it's causing earthquakes.
Apparently so. Do you have evidence of an alternative reason for earthquakes to go from 2/year prior to 2008 up to over 2/DAY in 2013?
I see.
So you are skeptical? That's fine. Have you looked at all the evidence and found a plausible alternative hypothesis we can test?
So what about the report coming from the government of the state of Oklahoma, which says basically the same thing?