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The process of hydraulic fracturing is a mining technique which uses injected fluid to propagate fractures in a rock layer to release hydrocarbon deposits that would otherwise be uncommercial. Developed in the U.S. and first used in 1947 for stimulating of oil and natural gas wells, the use of “fracking” soared in the past decade as thousands of wells have been drilled into the Marcellus Formation, also referred to as the Marcellus Shale, a deposit of marine sedimentary rock found in eastern North America. While initial environmental protests of the technique centered around its possibility of polluting underground water aquifers...

Over the past few years, the number of earthquakes in the usually seismically calm central United States has skyrocketed. Now scientists are pointing the finger at hydraulic fracturing, better known as "fracking," as the culprit. Fracking is a method of extracting natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel, from underground rocks. Proponents of natural gas say it could reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil since vast majority of it comes from within the country. Natural gas is also more plentiful and cheaper than oil. Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-04/earthquakes-in-central-us-almost-certainly-tied-to-fracking.aspx?storyid=133445#ixzz1rvY1bGUP

The USGS has registered three earthquakes, one at magnitude-6.9, the other a 6.2. The earthquakes struck in a sequence of less than a half hour apart.

Researchers in California have developed a system that can rapidly determine the size of an earthquake and the extent of its impacts within a fault zone, including its potential for triggering a devastating tsunami. The researchers have used the system – which is based on GPS measurements – to accurately model two historic earthquakes in Japan and northern Mexico. The 2011 Japanese earthquake disaster showed that the first few minutes after an earthquake are critical. When the T�hoku earthquake struck, it took geophysicists more than 20 min to compute that the earthquake was magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale. Had...

The massive earthquake off Indonesia surprised scientists: Usually this type of jolt isn't this powerful. The biggest earthquakes tend to occur in subduction zones where one plate of the Earth's crust dives under another. This grind produced the 2004 magnitude-9.1 Indian Ocean disaster and the magnitude-9 Japan quake last year. Wednesday's magnitude-8.6 occurred along a strike-slip fault line similar to California's San Andreas Fault. Scientists say it's rare for strike-slip quakes, in which blocks of rocks slide horizontally past each other, to be this large. "It's clearly a bit of an odd duck," said seismologist Susan Hough of the U.S....

The vice president shook up the scientific world Tuesday. At a campaign stop in Virginia touting the administration’s energy policy, Vice President Joseph R. Biden blamed earthquakes on the extraction of natural gas by fracking. Industry analysts immediately panned Mr. Biden’s remarks — which are backed by no evidence — about the hydraulic fracturing method that uses water, sand and chemicals to crack underground rock and release vast amounts of fuel. (Snip) But state officials have confirmed that the temblors were the result of a wastewater-disposal well, not fracking itself.

CLINTONVILLE - The booming and shaking continues in Clintonville. Clintonville police say they received about 65 calls Tuesday night, from people reporting three or four loud booms. Officials say the calls came in from 10:35 until 11:40 p.m. Authorities say the reports came from the same part of the city that has been experiencing the booms for more than a week, but there were also some reports farther west, including Clinton Avenue. Several callers told police that these booms were stronger than those from last week, but no damage has been reported. City officials have been in contact with the...

The risk of the southern Kanto region including Tokyo being hit by a major temblor within the next four years could be as high as about 70 percent, according to a study compiled by Monday by a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Institute. The figure is the same as the 70 percent forecast given for a magnitude 7.0 temblor hitting the region in the ambiguous "next 30 years" that has been repeatedly issued by the government's Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion on the basis of intervals between large quakes in the past. Naoshi Hirata, a...

A friend of mine watches the History Channel, because that's true information. Apparently she's seen a program twice about how global warming is causing the ice to melt and the additional weight of the water is increasing the likelihood of earthquakes. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!!!

New Zealand's earthquake-devastated city of Christchurch has been rocked by two powerful earthquakes in quick succession, damaging some buildings and forcing evacuations. The shallow tremors, both measuring 5.8 in magnitude, were 70 minutes apart but police say there are no reports of any serious injury or damage. It is being reported that one person was injured inside a shopping centre and has been taken to hospital. The first quake struck 20 kilometres north-east of Christchurch at a depth of less than five kilometres at 1:58pm (local time). The Christchurch airport and several other buildings in the area have been evacuated....

A tweet by a Lower House Councilman Hiroshi Kawauchi (DPJ) says the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency now admits in its report that the Reactor Pressure Vessel may have been broken by the EARTHQUAKE, not tsunami. No info about which reactor. Independent journalist Ryuichi Kino says whatever this document is, it is not yet uploaded to the NISA's site. I've checked the METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) press release page, and there is none so far. Councilman Kawauchi's tweet from December 9, 2011: 原�力安全�安院資料。原�炉内部�地震�よる微���傷��定�����記載。1時間�7トンも�冷���失�れる�傷を「微���表��る感覚��驚���り�������原�炉内部��傷��能性を������事実。 Document from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. It reads "a minute damage inside...

Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike. This, scientists say, could be the cause of bizarre earthquake-associated animal behaviour. Researchers began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of toads abandon its pond in L'Aquila, Italy in 2009 - days before a quake. They suggest that animal behaviour could be incorporated into earthquake forecasting. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote When you think of all of the many things that are happening to these rocks, it would be weird if the animals weren't affected in some way”...

A sharp increase in Oklahoma's seismic activity has many wondering if underground drilling is responsible. On Nov. 5, a 5.6-magnitude tremor rattled Oklahoma — one of the strongest to ever hit the state. Oklahoma is typically seismically stable with about 50 small quakes a year. But in 2009, that number jumped up to more than 1,000. Some people say the increasingly common use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — the controversial practice of blasting underground rock formations with high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals to extract natural gas — may have put stress on fault lines. Can human activity really cause...

On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois. Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state. Why? In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state. Cause and effect? The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological...

SPARKS, Okla. – Near a remote, dirt road intersection not far from this Lincoln County community, there are at least five visible cracks in the road, evidence of the 5.6 magnitude earthquake that was centered here late Saturday evening, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Having experienced an earthquake both at Red Dirt Report headquarters in Oklahoma City and another one while visiting Oklahoma State University in Stillwater – all in less than 24 hours, your Red Dirt Reporter, along with RDR contributor Ted H. Smith and photographer Marie Mentesana did our research as to the location of the quake’s...

That one felt bigger here in south OKC than yesterdays.

Anyone else feel that? Freaked my kids out, hubby too.

Two small earthquakes that shook the Lancashire coast of northeast England and the nearby city of Blackpool earlier this year were probably caused by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—a shale gas extraction technique that was being used nearby to explore its shale gas wells—according to a report(PDF) released today. The energy company Cuadrilla Resources had begun an experimental drilling operation half a kilometer from the quakes' epicenter in March. Fracking has caused concerns in some countries over its potential health and environmental impact—critics accuse it of contaminating drinking water with gas and the chemicals used for extraction—and it is banned in...

With the East Coast earthquake still a fresh memory, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pushing a bill designed to cut rates so more homeowners can afford quake insurance coverage, but the scope of the plan remains a big question mark with critics arguing that California would be the big winner at the expense of the rest of the nation. The nonprofit California Earthquake Authority is pushing the “Earthquake Insurance Affordability Act” that it says would cut rates by as much as 20 percent for homeowners. It also could leave the federal government on the hook for up to $5 billion...

Quite unusual.

In an increasingly urbanized world, earthquakes threaten unprepared cities with mass destruction.Seismic risk mitigation is the greatest urban policy challenge that the world confronts today. If you consider that too strong a claim, try to imagine another way in which bad urban policy could kill a million people in 30 seconds. Yet the politics of earthquakes are rarely discussed, and when discussed, widely misunderstood. Take the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, which released 600 million times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb. The ensuing partial meltdown of the Fukushima reactor prompted international hysteria about nuclear power, but few...

(CNN) -- A major earthquake struck off northeastern Japan Sunday, prompting tsunami advisories for several coastal regions, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, according to the Japanese news agency Kyodo. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at 10:57 a.m. at the epicenter, about 130 miles east of Sendai. The earthquake was more than 20 miles deep and had a magnitude of 7.0, the USGS said. The JMA measured the magnitude of the quake at 7.1.

Study finds that faults beneath the Salton Sea ruptured during Colorado River floods and may have triggered large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas FaultSouthern California's Salton Sea, once a large natural lake fed by the Colorado River, may play an important role in the earthquake cycle of the southern San Andreas Fault and may have triggered large earthquakes in the past. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Nevada, Reno, discovered new faults in the Salton Sea near the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. By examining...

From USGS:This event has been reviewed by a seismologist. Magnitude 7.2 Date-Time Friday, June 24, 2011 at 03:09:40 UTCThursday, June 23, 2011 at 06:09:40 PM at epicenterTime of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 52.008°N, 171.859°W Depth 62.6 km (38.9 miles) Region FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA Distances 162 km (101 miles) E (97°) from Atka, AK228 km (142 miles) WSW (244°) from Nikolski, AK328 km (204 miles) E (86°) from Adak, AK1681 km (1045 miles) WSW (243°) from Anchorage, AK Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13.8 km (8.6 miles); depth +/- 5.3 km (3.3 miles) Parameters NST=784, Nph=791, Dmin=231.5 km,...

ROME—Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), will face trial on charges of manslaughter with six other scientists and technicians for failing to alert the residents of L'Aquila ahead of the devastating earthquake that struck the central Italian town on 6 April 2009, killing 308 people. The seven experts sit on the nation's major risks committee, and were probed by L'Aquila prosecutors after members of the public complained that it was the committee's reassurances that persuaded them not to leave their homes ahead of the quake.

The Red Squares represent earthquakes within the past hour. The size of the square represents the magnitude of the quake.

Distant earthquakes -- even thousands of miles away -- have far more impact on California's San Andreas Fault than scientists previously realized, new research has found. Large quakes like the magnitude 9.1 event in Sumatra that triggered tsunami waves across the Indian ocean in 2004 and the 8.8 quake in Chile last year caused parts of the San Andreas fault deep underground to suddenly slip, setting off small tremors, according to a study released Tuesday by seismologists with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. There's still no evidence that large quakes in one part of the world can set...

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.3, one of many earthquakes that the park is assailed with every year. According to local news sites and the US Geological Survey (USGS) May 8, 2011. ... A 7.5 magnitude earthquake, which occurred in 1959, near the Hebgen Lake though, had killed 28 people. According to geologists however, the Yellowstone caldera itself is unlikely to experience large earthquakes because the weakened bedrock is less likely to burst due to high subsurface temperatures.

Nevada Seismologists are keeping a close eye on an area southwest of Hawthorne, Nevada where hundreds of earthquakes have been detected since Sunday. " It's a little bit concerning in a sense.. The largest earthquakes in these sequences are pretty large in size." Graham Kent is Director of Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada Reno. He says there have been hundreds of earthquakes southwest of Hawthorne over the past few days. The largest-- recorded at a 4.4 in size. "These are the biggest in a sequence we've seen at least in the last couple of years." Kent says...

The extraordinarily powerful magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan were truly terrible — many lives were lost and there was great destruction. President Obama’s heart went out to the people of Japan and he did his presidential best “during this enormous tragedy, please know that America will always stand by one of its greatest allies during their time of need.” We know that’s true because he wrote it and because he told us, compassionately, to assist the Japanese while filling out brackets for the NCAA basketball tournaments. . . . As White House press secretary Jay Carney stated, it...

I've heard so much from radio and television prophets as of late that, "The God of love certainly does not direct nature to perform catastrophic calamities such as floods, earthquakes, famines, etc." We are so ready to recognize Christ as the ultimate benevolent God, Who does nothing but direct His flock in only a Good Shepherdly way, and would never chasten, or worse, His people, or those who want nothing to do with Him, ie., unbelievers. Not knowing always when and where God meets out calamity, or exactly for what reasons, it is not hard to see through the...

WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T PREDICT EARTHQUAKES ACCURATELY? Geologist: Alarming magnetic field changes signal major quake for West Coast

In 2005 the Lord gave me a vision of a mountain range rising up straight down Interstate 5 from Olympia through California . Yesterday I sensed even parts of the Olmypic Peninsula may soon disappear ! There is about to be , A catastrophe , Of human life greater than ever fortold , A separating of the sheep not of my fold , The ones that have gone the way of Cain , Sold their birthright as Esau for a moment of gain, These sheep have already witnessed the wonders of my love , But have rejected the God of...

Chapter 2 Drastic Weather Change and Earthquakes ( The Vision by David Wilkerson-published in 1974) Earthquakes coming to United States The United States is going to experience in the not-too-distant future the most tragic earthquakes in its history. One day soon this nation will be reeling under the impact of the biggest news story of modern times. It will be coverage of the biggest most disastrous earthquake in history.

Last night I watched the movie THE CORE. I could not help but put on a huge tin-foil hat when I saw birds dropping from the sky. ______________________________________________________________ A 2003, Hollywood Movie "The Core" got released and the plot was The Earth's core has stop spinning due to misuse of HAARP. Disasters are appearing all over the world. Birds start dieing, powerful thunderstorms, people died as heart stop working. Film showed how the series of events over the world connected by variances in the Earth's electromagnetic field as the rotation of Earth's molten core is slowing down, leading eventually to...

As good a read as it is throughout, Lawrence Joseph's book, Apocalypse 2012: An Investigation into Civilization's End devotes a spine-tingling chapter to two ticking bombs in our own backyard — Yellowstone National Park and California's Long Valley Caldera. Both locations are home to massive supervolcanoes. Geologists say these submerged magma chambers fill up over the course of several hundred thousand years, then shoot their wads skyward in climate-changing events. And both are due for their periodic eruption. The last supervolcano to erupt on the planet was Mount Toba in Sumatra — 74,000 years ago. Incredibly, both Yellowstone and Long...

7.2 quake in Japan, analysis of current situation globally - March 9, 2011 Japan has legally mandated extensive preparedness for any kind of earthquakes. That this strong off-coast earthquake resulted in no casualty might be due to that. The country also has a unique seismic intensity scale called "Shindo" in addition to the magnitude scale. Magnitude is the released energy itself; intensity is the local effects of that energy. The recent M7+ earthquake most affected the northern part, where Shindo 5-lower was felt (the highest value being 7). The video shows swarms and successions of earthquakes on March 9 and...

End Times: The Unbelief of Man Vs. The Word of God

Things are still shaking in Arkansas. More than 500 measurable earthquakes have been reported in central Arkansas since September 20, ranging in magnitude from a barely noticeable 1.8 to a very noticeable 4.0 (recorded on October 11), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Geologists can't say whether they'll stop anytime soon.

Dishes rattled and buildings shook in the Schuyler area Thursday morning as a 3.3 magnitude earthquake rumbled up from one of the Midlands' many unmapped faults. “The whole house shook,” said Dave Svoboda of Schuyler. “The glasses in the cupboard shook; you could feel the floor shake.” Svoboda was at home, getting ready for work, when the quake hit at 7:02 a.m. As of late morning, no significant damage had been reported. But city employees were checking structures just in case, Schuyler Police Chief Lennie Hiltner said. Hiltner, Svoboda and others said they initially thought a nearby building had exploded...

Troubling Global Volcanic Activity On The Rise By Alan CarubaNovember 3, 2010 3 Nov 10 - The news is all about the Tuesday’s U.S. elections, but some of us are concerned about the news on Monday regarding a possible eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland. Never heard of it? You will. Grimsvotn is the most active volcano in Iceland. The one that made a lot of news earlier in 2010 was Eyjafjallajokull that, while relatively small, generated such a huge cloud of ash that it disrupted air travel across western and northern Europe for six days in April. Here’s...

What is it about Hillary Rodham Clinton and earthquakes? Seems the secretary of state rarely takes an overseas trip that is not in some way affected by a temblor.

Recent reports suggest that the major rupture predicted for the southern San Andreas fault could be longer and stronger than the last big quake, shaking from Monterey County down to the Salton Sea. The "Big One" that has been forecast for the San Andreas fault could end up being bigger than earthquake experts previously thought. Recent research showing that a section of the fault is long overdue for a major earthquake has some scientists saying the southern portion of the fault is capable of a magnitude 8.1 earthquake that could run 340 miles from Monterey County to the Salton Sea....

Because of Sunday's gargantuan quake, planet Earth is ringing like a church bell. You can't hear it, but it's being measured at seismic stations around the world, including Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. It will last for three days, perhaps longer. The quake, which measured 9.0 on the Richter scale, was caused by the shifting of geological plates along a 600-mile area. This changed the Earth's mass. As the mass returns to normal, it moves back and forth, much like a church bell when struck by a tong, said Stony Brook geophysicist Teng-fong Wong.[snip] The quake...

Earthquakes strike along California's San Andreas Fault more often than scientists previously thought, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and Arizona State charted temblors that occurred there stretching back 700 years. They found that large ruptures have occurred on the Carrizo Plain portion of the San Andreas Fault — about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles — as often as every 45 to 144 years. But the last big quake was in 1857, more than 150 years ago. The researchers said that while it's possible the fault is experiencing a natural lull, they think it's...

As UC Davis physicist and geologist John Rundle ponders the map of recent California earthquakes, he sees visions of a doughnut even Homer J. Simpson wouldn't like. The doughnut is formed by pinpointing the recent quakes near Eureka, Mexicali and Palm Springs. Seismologists call the possible pattern a Mogi doughnut. It's the outgrowth of a concept, developed in Japan, which holds that earthquakes sometimes occur in a circular pattern over decades —building up to one very large quake in the doughnut hole. Rundle and his colleagues believe that the recent quakes, combined with larger seismic events including the 1989 Loma...

Of the many different natural disasters that exist, nothing is as terrifying and devastating as the awesome power of an earthquake. In just a few moments of time an earthquake can unleash catastrophic damage and the deaths of multitudes. Who can forget the recent earthquake in Jamaica in 2009? As we inch ever closer to the coming Day of the Lord, we are seeing a marked global increase in the number and intensity of earthquakes - just as Jesus said we would (see Matt. 24:7-8; Mark 13:8)! The Facts from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Over the past three decades...

May 30, 2010 Chinese dam causes quakes and landslides Michael Sheridan and Richard Jones Roads are cracked in the Huang Gu Po district of Badong on the lower reaches of the Three Gorges Dam Some of the damage caused can be seen in Badong The Three Gorges dam was so vast and sweeping a vision that nothing could stand in its way. Not the old cities of the Yangtze valley, storehouses of human toil and treasure for more than a thousand years. Not the lush, low-lying farmlands, nor the villages, nor even the pagodas and temples that graced the riverbanks....

Magnitude 5.3 Date-Time * Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 17:30:57 UTC * Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 10:30:57 AM at epicenter

... As we have learned, these gases form an invisible barrier that, like a greenhouse's glass ceiling, keeps reflected heat of the sun from escaping our atmosphere. The denser that gaseous barrier grows, the hotter things get and the faster glaciers melt. As they flow off the land, we are warned, seas rise. Yet something else is lately worrying geologists: the likelihood that the Earth's crust, relieved of so much formidable weight of ice borne for many thousands of years, has begun to stretch and rebound.