Posted on 04/12/2012 7:24:19 PM PDT by Mad Dawgg
The U.S. Geological Survey will soon confirm that the oil and gas industry is creating earthquakes, and new data from the Midwest finds that these man-made quakes are happening more often than originally thought.
Earthquakes happen when faults in the Earth slip and slide against each other. There's continuous stress on innumerable faults on our continent, but seismologists like Bill Ellsworth, from the U.S. Geological Survey, started seeing something odd about 12 years ago.
"One thing we had begun to notice was that there were an unusual number of earthquakes in the middle of the country," he says, an area not known for quakes. They were small, though usually just over magnitude 3. Then, in 2009, the shaking got much more frequent.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
/sarc
It’s on taxpayer funded NPR so it must be true. They speak with British accents.
Karl Rove and his weather makin’ machine.
Thank God they have found a way to keep us from getting cheap energy.
The middle of the counrty had a seismic event that made the Mississippi river run backwards to create Real Foot Lake. Maybe this expert needs to go back to school and study the 3 quakes of the New Madrid fault in 1811 and 1812. We weren’t drilling then and did I mention the Mississippi flowed backwards?
More junk science from a government “scientist”. Shouldn’t Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran be having earthquakes 24/7?
Geez
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/seismicity/
This shows the cluster where there have historically been quakes. I see that the midwest cluster has all about the same intensity, and are located where plates meet.
Fracking will be next.
Anything that reduces our dependence on foreign oil is bad and must be suppressed. Sort of like the Saudis have some say in where we drill.
Well, yeah. You suck the oil out, there’s no more lube left, and the continents go dry and grind into each other.
Just spray some WD40 down there and it’ll be fine.
the sunspot cycle activity went flat line like Rosie’s career and Oparh’s network .. it’s the earth’s crust coooling and contracting,, no wait, I thought global varming was .. no wait ..
Over to you Hurl-aldo.. for more asstute analysis
If it’s a “government” study you can bet it’s B.S.
Ping.
Quake science! Seriously, when you pump stuff out of the ground, or crack rocks in an industrial scale, things are bound to shift.
So, even if this is true, why this is a big deal? Nobody has died from this. All quakes are minor. Earthquakes just sound scary, but these 3-4 Richter scale quakes are peanuts compared to real killers that happen NATURALLY!
Odd, this new seismicity map does not quite match the one I posted upthread.
They don't do any fraccing over there -- don't have to.
This is just another shot in the enviros anti-fraccing war.
Funny, though, that they've been fraccing in Texas and Oklahoma since the fifties -- but it just started showing up in 2009?
Good God Man! We can't have "facts" clouding up a Liberal Meme to stop America becoming Energy independent. Next thing you know we won't need Electric Cars and Windmills and EPA Carbon Emission standards and then were would we be....?
In fact, you could make the case that the smaller quakes are relieving pressure that otherwise would build up and eventually cause a massive earthquake.
[[Thank God they have found a way to keep us from getting cheap energy.]]
Absolutely! I was worried I mgith actually be able to afford to fill my gas tank and drive soemwhere someday- I’m relieved to find out that due to ‘man-caused earthquakes’ that that won’t be haqppenign any time soon
If anything, these tiny earthquakes relieve pressure on existing fault lines and can only make us safer.
Probably Obama’s Arab pals have told him that he needs to stop the fracking, NOW! They’ve been looking for excuses. So, they offered this guy a nice fat promotion.
“Some settling of contents may occur”.
Every time I drive by a gas station, the price is higher.
WE ARE SO SCREWED!
>> “Well Bloomberg had it also” <<
.
Similar credibility level
Pish posh!
Chuck Norris visits God’s Country—the middle states—as often as he can.
Chuck is so scary the makes the Earth shake. He can’t help it.
He can point a attractive women and say, “Booyah!” and the Earth moves.
He works out every few minutes to keep his heart rate down to one pulse a day, and his push-up routine actually pushes the Earth away from him. and then he pulls it back.
This is to be expected. No worries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7uw5zCp-Dc
[[So, even if this is true, why this is a big deal?]]
Do you realizze how many prariedogs have hadf to go into therapy because of ‘man-caused earthquakes’? Have you no feelings for groundwellers?
It’s not the fracking that is causing the quakes. It is the injection of water that is recovered after the fracking into disposal wells. They pick some deep sand layer below all of the aquifers and just pump it in.
It takes about one million gallons of water to frack a well.
Oh no I'm not saying the story is credible because Bloomberg has it. I think it is a load of BullSHIT for sure. I was saying its on way more than NPR. AP has it Fox News Bloomberg. etc.
It looks like someone is setting the stage for the Gub'Ment to put a moratorium on Fracking. I bet Obama has an Executive Order all typed up ready to go waiting on a big MidWest Earthquake to happen so he can ride in and grab the thunder!
Every oil well is a lance through Mother Gaia’s heart.
STOP THE MADNESS! d;^)
99%'er Neanderthals finally forced the idea of "government" in order to spread the wealth around.
So I guess Obamster the hamster will pump out strategic oil reserves back into the ground to prevent “earthquakes.”
If “ - - - The U.S. Geological Survey will soon confirm that the oil and gas industry is creating earthquakes - - - ,” then WERE IS THE CAUSE AND EFFECT?
WHAT OBJECTIVE TESTS WERE PERFORMED?
ESCAPE THE POP-CULTURE, JUNK SCIENCE of the False Claims of Global Warming!
BE SCIENTIFIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I heard that Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.
Where would we be? Up a river without a paddle, that’s where. But wait, if it’s a big enough quake the river could flow backwards and then we would be right back where we started... (my brain hurts thinking of the possibilities! )
“The U.S. Geological Survey will soon confirm that the oil and gas industry is creating earthquakes....”
.
Very convenient.
Will oil companies confirm these findings?
You mean we now have a way to eliminate all the pent up energy on our own time schedule? this is better than sliced bread.
What is the “Midwest” to them? Arkansas and Missouri have small quakes relatively frequently. I notice Pennsylvania has escaped the dreaded 3.0 quake.
Fracking causes earthquakes? Bunkum. I lived in the 4 Corners area where there are thosuands of gas wells and around the Woodward OK area. Don.t remember any e-quakes there!
Don't these assholes ever look at history. This is a shot of Beaumont, TX in 1903.
If drilling caused earthquakes, TX would have slid into the ocean 100 years ago; and Oklahoma and Louisiana would be giant sink holes.

.
California is earthquake-prone and we don't even drill there any more.
1 million gallon of water to frac one well? I’ve been around many a well frac job and they sure as heck didn’t have 150 frac tanks sitting on the site. Maybe need to revisit your 1 million gallon statement.
I just love how the only vehicle in the picture is pulled by horses. Great early look at what became.
let me get this straight... gas replaced with water causes quakes, but oil pumped out leaving a VOID does not??? please
If you recall that allegation was made following the last regional quake. Everyone wanted to blame Bush and the evil Americans for all that death and damage and oil was their mechanism.
The first oil well in United States is drilled in 1859 at Titusville, Pennsylvania. As we all know before 1859 there were no earth quakes in North America.
Shallow earthquake are less than 70km 43 miles.
Deep oil well run over 7000 ft
The deepest well in California was 24,426 ft.
The 7000 number was from the USGS and I will check what it was.
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