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Are Oklahoma's Quakes Caused By Wastewater Disposal? (Spolier Alert: Yes!)
Submitted by Andy Tully via OilPrice.com,
No matter what other problems may or may not be linked to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the disposal of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly is primarily responsible for the recent spate of earthquakes in Oklahoma, normally a seismologically quiet state.
That’s the conclusion of a report issued April 21 by the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS), in which the state geologist Richard D. Andrews and Dr. Austen Holland, the state seismologist, said the rate of earthquakes near major oil and gas drilling operations that produce large amounts of wastewater demonstrate that the quakes “are very unlikely to represent a naturally occurring process.”
Andrews and Holland concluded that the “primary suspected source” of the quakes is not hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which water and chemicals are injected under high pressure to crack shale to free oil and gas trapped inside. It said the source is more likely the injection of wastewater from this process in disposal wells, because water used in fracking cannot be re-used.
“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,” the statement said. It warned that residents should prepare for “a significant earthquake.”
Oklahoma recorded 585 earthquakes with a magnitude of 3 or greater, the equivalent of the force felt in Oklahoma City at the time of the terrorist bombing in 1995. This is a significant increase from 109 earthquakes of the same magnitude in 2013. Before 2008, when fracking became a popular drilling technique in the state, there were fewer than two earthquakes in Oklahoma each year, on average.
Andrews’ and Holland’s report draws the same conclusions as a study last year by Katie Keranen, an assistant professor of seismology at Cornell University, who found that injecting fracking wastewater into underground disposal sites tends to widen cracks in geological formations, increasing the chances of earthquakes.
Keranen’s study, in turn, reinforces similar conclusions in a previous study by the U.S. Geological Survey, which found that earthquakes in central and eastern parts of the United States between 2010 and 2013 also coincided with the disposal of fracking wastewater.
What’s important about Andrews’ and Holland’s conclusion is that they represent the state of Oklahoma, where energy is an important industry, providing about one-quarter of the state’s jobs. Last autumn, Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, dismissed the problem as speculative and urged further study.
But in a statement coinciding with Andrews’ and Holland’s report, Fallin said their ability to link wastewater disposal with earthquakes was significant and promised unspecified action. “Oklahoma state agencies already are taking action to address this issue and protect homeowners,” she said.
The state’s energy industry also supports further study of the state’s recent uncharacteristic seismic activity. “Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas producers have a proven history of developing the state’s oil and natural gas resources in a safe and effective manner,” Kim Hatfield, regulatory committee chairman for the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, said in a statement.
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One again correlation is not causality. The Yellowstone cauldron is also active. Both seem plausible and maybe it is the two in tandem.
And the amount of property damage from these hundreds of quakes ?
Zero.
Thanks for wasting our time
Yep, hundreds of quakes happen all the time and you can barely feel them til they get around 4 on the Richter.
Apparently not
Some old lady had here stone fireplace come apart on her leg in OK.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/can-this-oklahoma-oilm...
Definitely some correlation between pumping wastewater and earthquakes.
The interesting part is that companies use dampened microseiographs to meausure and record the path of the fractures underground.
Read me:
http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/measurementandobser...
Greetings.
I'm from the GOVERNMENT, and I'm here to help.
Let me try to clear up this situation, so that there is no confusion.
Since time forgotten, people have FRACKED other people. Adam fracked Eve (and this created the human race), and Abel fracked over Cain (it didn't work out too well for Abel, or Cain, though). Since you are all believers, you'll understand where I'm going here.
Hydraulic fracturing has been going on for millenia. Inserting a smooth-bore 'drilling rig' and then tunneling sideways to deposit poisoned stuff is a TRADITION that must be followed. Whether it's a man or a woman; whether it's at a shallow depth or a deep one; whether it has side-effects that last a lifetime or not, the only issue here is the survival of the CORPOREAL, um, 'being'. NOW, you might think that CORPORATIONS are mere 'entities', but the Supreme Court of the Occupied CONUS has ruled that they are PEOPLE, TOO.
YEA, my brothers and sisters, be NOT alarmed by 'slight earthquakes' beneath your foundations! The BEDROCK of your Master Mammon is simply giving you the SIGN of REPENTANCE!
TAX SEASON has come and gone now, but you STILL have the opportunity to repent for all the SINS of your filings! HOW can you do this, you might ask?
Donate NOW to British Petroleum Gulf Coast Cleanup (dot net). Of course, your donations are 'tax deductible'!
OTHERS within the 'circle' might also see your willingness to cast away all those sins, and you might be surprised as your lord blesses you with a washcloth impregnated with non-flouridated water.
DONATE, NOW, and SEE the realization of your sacrifices!
In his love,
Pastor Jamie Dimon (on behalf of those that toil and travail every day on the Internet, promoting the ideals of Hydraulic Fracturing)
(obligatory <sarc> tag provided for those who do not see the obvious efforts of the CORPOREALS to troll the ZH website)
last week man made global warming, man made climate change, man made climate disruption caused earthquakes.....
STOP WITH THE STUPID LIES!
You used the words causality and correlation in a sentence. I'm going to upvote you because it sounded cool.
Just a bastardization of CAUSATION does not equal CORRELATION.......
Whenever I see Oilprice, I know not to waste my time.
When a significant earthquake happens, bringing billions in property damage, who will be liable (other than taxpayers)...the State or the Fracking Companies?
That's a very good question.
WHO (or what entity) is LIABLE: The fracking STATE, or the fracking CORPORATION?
Il Duce (Benito Mussolini) defined 'the term' quite pre-predictively, when he described it as the 'perfect merger of the Corporation and the State'.
As far as INDEMNITY is concerned, I still have an insurance account with the Greenberg-operated entity named 'American International Group'. Since they didn't pay out after Katrina in Louisiana (I lived in a 'high-risk' zone), I have decided to move to Oklahoma (geologically stable, and no floods. At least, that's what they tell me).
Sorry, I have to go (my monthly insurance payment is due, and I wouldn't want to piss off the people that have helped me so much in the past). Things are important to the woman that I was told to support, and all that.
John Q. Sheople
Oklahoma won't do anything until a steamy geyser blows off the capital dome. if oil and natty prices stay this low the state is up shit creek budget-wise and right quick too.
Folks in Guthrie OK wonder if the spice will continue to flow or will they be a sacrificial pig?
http://www.guthriescottishrite.org/
This is a 'shaky' accusation.
If waste water is causing tremors, it would seem equally likely that once the water settles and disperses that it would actually diminish earthquake chances.
When you flush the toilet, a flood of pressursed water fills the bowl. The water table within the toilet becomes violent and agitated, lifting whatever you have felt the need to deposit to the surface.
A short time later, within seconds, the bowl empties, leaving a void.
The water and the solid waste rapidly depart, leaving an empty space (which, of course, the pressure from your toilet will fill up, rapidly, as though nothing had happened). The cycle repeats again and again...
ALL THAT SHIT needs to be taken DOWNRIVER, though (due to the fact that you want to come out of the bathroom smelling like a Rose). When you run the tapwater, and see brown clumps coming out, and it smells like sulfer, and the dishes have brown spots on them when they dry, and it seems like you can't drink your tapwater, and naturally stable places (geologically) begin to have unnatural earthquakes, YOU will still be DEBATING the logical permutations of the Corporatons that are telling you that 'everything is awesome'.
Have you ever heard the name 'John Gross' in relation to N.I.S.T. and the '9/11 Report'?
Let's try THIS word:
'EQUILIBRIUM'
Hey, POSER, what's YOUR side?
"...produced water...", AKA polluted toxic "water".
Drink up OKIES!
water wells are 300-900 feet deep, oil injection-side casing runs deeper than that and they are pressure tested yearly. oil production wells are a mile deep. the wastewater disposal wells are three miles deep and that shit just drops right in there like it's falling into a void. the groundwater is fine except for naturally occurring arsenic etc.. i hate the earthquakes but seriously doubt that the "big one" is imminent.
.... and birth control pills getting flushed down the toilets causing low sperm counts and people to go crazy and grow tits like Bruce Jennerbender!
"because water used in fracking cannot be re-used."-umm yes it can
"because water used in fracking cannot be re-used."-umm yes it can
For a while scientists in CA considered injecting water into faults zones with the intention of triggering a series of small quakes - the idea being that the small ones would lessen the chances of "the big one". No one had the stones to try this theory out however. So we are getting a free application in the OK frack-belt.
Memo to CA - probably should not do any hydraulic fracking unless you are feeling lucky
Yeah but there's a guy before you who said correlation doesn't mean causality so you need to shut and upvote him otherwise someone here will call you a libtard.
No, the quakes are caused by global warming because actor Danny Glover said so and anybody who doesn't agree with him is a racist.
We had earthquakes in Colorado in the late 60's when Rocky Flats Nuclear Plant north of Denver was injecting their nuclear waste water into deep wells.
It started shortly after the water injection was begun, and after it was stopped, so did the earthquakes.
We never did see the monster nuclear mutant worms that were blamed by experts to be causing them, though.
Once again logic and common sense are ignored for money. I mean, who didn't see this as the most likely result of "frac"turing the ground we live on?
"Asbestos is perfectly safe! Stop being such a pussy and go get me a carton of Lucky Strikes!" - Assholes of an earlier generation.
sometimes I wonder if it means Arkansas is about to blow as it has had a very long history of being volcanically active.
Dunno...could be from all those leftover bombs that were planted in the Federal Building in OKC....
Why is the wastewater injected into wells? There must be other ways to get rid of it.
Maybe because it's an EPA regulation to do so?
Because up until now there has never been a reason to think it wpuld cause any harm. Below the water table the water in the earth is all ancient salty brine laced with nasties. Were producing it one place and sending it back to another. Treatment of the water is possible but expensive, but does take place in some areas where required, or where no injection wells are available.
Rgs
BT
How is it that in all the history of the methods of Fracking, especially the widely used nitroglycerin to fracture before 1949, people are blaming wastewater for all the ills now? Could it be that environmentalists don't know anything about history, or physics?
https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/fossil-power/fracking-a...
I guess you missed this part of the article for which you provided the link:
A typical early fracture took 750 gallons of fluid (water, gelled crude oil, or gelled kerosene) and 400 lbm of sand. By contrast, modern methods can use up to 8 million gallons of water and 75,000 to 320,000 pounds of sand. Fracking fluids can take the form of foams, gels, or slickwater combinations and often include benzene, hydrochloric acid, friction reducers, guar gum, biocides, and diesel fuel. Likewise, the hydraulic horsepower (hhp) needed to pump fracking material has risen from an average of about 75 hhp in the early days to an average of more than 1,500 hhp today, with big jobs requiring more than 10,000 hhp.
So maybe, just maybe, there's a difference in the impact fracking had years ago vs today.
Wtf I hate this half ass researched bullshit, the disposed water is 95 percent produced brine water that actually is in the formation naturally and cant be used for anything else. If the only thing needing to be disposed was frac water it wouldnt be an issue as there wouldnt be the need to push that much back down. It is the volume and pressure causing this, the state will just set limits on volume and pressure per disposal well
Just dump the waste water in the Mississippi and let the ocean clean it up...and it will.
The latest John Stewart show does a segment on this adding:
In response to the OGS report, Oklahoma state representatives passed a bill that prohibits cities and towns from regulating oil and natural gas drilling operations.
State house representative Scott Inman warned: “The folks pushing this bill are the ones causing these earthquakes in our communities,” said Inman, who said his suburban Oklahoma City house has cracks in the floors and ceiling that are uncharacteristic for a structure that is only nine years old. My house shakes today. I know that I’m not the only one. The big one is coming. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a question of when.”
Salt Water Disposal isn't just from fracking, it's been part of the oil production process from the start. Every well produces water with the oil, that's what separators do if you have ever seen a tank battery near a pump jack or group of them, there is a tall cylinder which separates, water, oill and gas. The water goes into one tank and the oil in another. Most older wells produce 98% water which is eventually re-injected back into the formation. Frac jobs use a lot of water and the well will produce more water than oil at first so there is more water to be disposed of with fracs but it's not like this hasn't been going on for a long time and if it were causative, would have been noticed a long time ago in the older fields that produce mostly water already. This isn't real science, it's statistics which don't prove a thing. Their hypothesis is easily negated by the huge number of disposal wells that have been taking water for years.
working for an oil co I can tell you the insiders believe the injection is causing the issue and have already started working on curtailing pressure and volume in given wells it appears to be a threshold issue and if they slow down injection the quakes should stop or at least slow way down.