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Meet The Man Responsible For Oklahoma's Earthquake Epidemic

Tyler Durden's picture




 

As part of the US shale miracle, a far less pleasant, and talked about side-effect are the millions of gallons of wastewater: that key component of the new drilling technology that allows previously inaccessible deposits to be extracted. And, as increasingly more states are finding out, the problem isn’t pumping the water out, but finding a place to put it, no places more so than Oklahoma.

To be sure, Oklahoma benefited hugely from the shale revolution: the state’s oil production has doubled in the past five years. And now, as the Piper has finally come to collect his due, the ground is literally shaking under the feet of Oklahoma's residents as the aftermath of the fracking "boom" has unleashed an unprecedented series of earthquakes.

The reason: instead of disposing wastewater in some regulated manner, in Oklahoma it gets injected back underground. And as wastewater disposal rates have doubled, seismic activity has exploded across Oklahoma. After averaging 1.6 earthquakes per year of magnitude 3.0 or higher, the state experienced 64 in 2011, including its largest in recorded history—a 5.7-magnitude temblor on Nov. 6, 2011, centered in Prague, 50 miles east of Oklahoma City, that buckled a highway, destroyed 14 homes, and injured two people.

Last year, Bloomberg reports, the number soared to 585 quakes, making Oklahoma the most seismically active state in the continental U.S.; it’s on pace for 900 quakes in 2015 a number one would expect from a place such as Japan, located on a continental fault line or even California (whose San Andreas faultline is about to make another B-grade movie appearance) and certainly not in America's heartland. Swarms of quakes have rattled other states with oil and gas operations, including Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas.

Here are the facts: between 1974 and 2009 there were 62 magnitude 3.0 or stronger earthquakes in Oklahoma. In the past five years there have been 1,070 M3.0+ quakes. Since 2013, there have been more quakes in Oklahoma each year than in California. The chart of Oklahoma's quake surge correlates perfectly with the amount of wastewater injected into the state.

As noted here previously, seismologists who study the phenomenon of man-made quakes - which they call “induced seismicity”- ascribe them to the massive amounts of oil and gas wastewater being injected deep underground near fault lines. Over time, geologists say, the disposal water changes underground pore pressures, in essence lubricating the fissures between tectonic plates and causing them to slip. “Wastewater injection,” says Bill Ellsworth, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, “is undoubtedly responsible for the majority of these earthquakes.” On April 21, the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) issued a statement declaring that the oil and gas industry is “very likely” contributing to the huge rise in earthquakes in Oklahoma.

 

 

When it comes to Oklahoma's "induced seismicity" there is nobody more responsible for either Oklahoma's "shale miracle" or the resultant earthquake epidemic than David Chernicky, CEO of Tulsa-based New Dominion.

This is his story, as recounted by Bloomberg:

By the late 1960s the Oklahoma City oil field was largely spent. As crude was sucked out, it gradually flooded with vast amounts of salt water, the remnants of an ancient ocean that once covered the Midwest. The pockets of oil and gas that remained in the reservoir were trapped deep inside rocks. The only way to get at them was to “dewater” the field—which meant pumping out hundreds of millions of barrels of salty, often toxic wastewater, then disposing of it.

 

David Chernicky saw an opportunity. A trained geologist turned wildcatter, he’s devoted most of his 35 years in the oilpatch to perfecting the business of reviving oil fields instead of exploring for new ones. “I try to pick the ugly girl at the dance,” he says. Chernicky spent years studying the Oklahoma City field, poring through stacks of geological studies and surveys, some of which went back 65 or 70 years. He figured it still held about 50 million recoverable barrels of oil. “That 2-foot-thick file of data on Oklahoma City says there’s a ton of oil still there, but you have to think outside the box to get it,” he says.

 

... In 2003 New Dominion, began work on a new breed of injection well, a type that could take down tens of millions of barrels a year and bury it deep underground. Chernicky, who has a bawdy streak, named the first one Deep Throat.

Behold: Deep Throat.

According to Bloomberg, few companies have more at stake than New Dominion. "A July 2014 study published in Science found that four high-volume disposal wells owned by New Dominion on the outskirts of Oklahoma City may have accounted for 20 percent of all seismic activity in the central U.S. from 2008 to 2013. Two victims of the 5.7 quake from 2011 have sued New Dominion for damages; the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Sandra Ladra, a 64-year-old resident of Prague, who sued after her stone chimney crumbled during the quake, sending rocks crashing down on her legs. Should the court establish a precedent where New Dominion and companies like it can be held liable for earthquake damage, the fallout could be severe. “If wastewater wells come under heavy fire from lawsuits and regulations, it could change the entire economics of the oil industry in this state,” says Kim Hatfield, chairman of the regulatory committee at the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association.

Perhaps instead of competing with US shale on the global marketplace in a race who can cut prices the most and stay in business, the Saudis should be more interested in sponsoring Ladra's legal case against New Dominion:because as Steve Everley of Energy In Depth, an industry-backed research group, says, “If you shut down [wastewater] disposal, you’re effectively shutting down production."

You also kill the US shale miracle without selling a single barrel of oil below cost.

That, or just bribe Chernicky to admit his process will lead to ever stronger and more destructive erathquakes. For now, however, the legendary wildcatter is sticking to his guns.

The fourth of 10 children, Chernicky learned to work hard early. His father, Thomas, was a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from Ukraine. After serving in World War II, Thomas worked at Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City, helping retrofit B-52s. The Chernicky children didn’t get any allowance and were all expected to earn their own keep. “Dave was probably the most industrious of the kids,” says his older brother Wayne. “Of all the 10 kids, Dave saw the opportunities to make money the earliest.” David took on four or five paper routes. When he turned 14, he realized he could make $1.10 an hour at McDonald’s, where he’d sometimes work more than 80 hours per week.

 

After a stint in the Air Force, Chernicky earned a degree in exploration geophysics from the University of Oklahoma. He went to work in Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains for Marathon Oil and Amoco before striking out on his own as an independent petroleum geologist. He quickly gained a reputation for his unconventional methods of finding oil. “I’ve never found an appreciable drop of oil through textbook geology,” he says. When oil prices tanked in the mid-1980s, things got tight. “At that time, working at McDonald’s probably paid better than being a self-employed geologist in Oklahoma,” says Wayne. To get by, David drove a truck for Wayne’s office supply business in Tulsa. “I’ve seen him come through good times and bad times,” says Wayne. “Each time, I see him come out stronger.”

 

By the mid-1990s, Chernicky had established himself as a technical master of dewatering, putting his consulting company, Chernico Exploration, in high demand. His first big success was dewatering an old oil field called the Red Fork, lowering large, submersible pumps into the wells to suck out massive quantities of water. The more water that was drained, the more oil and gas seeped out of the sandstone. A successfully dewatered field quickly shrinks the ratio of water to oil. In one of its earliest wells, New Dominion initially pulled up 160 barrels of water for each barrel of oil. Over 16 months, that improved to 7.5 to 1. “It was a very smart idea,” says Kurt Rottmann, a petroleum geologist who has worked on Oklahoma oil fields for four decades. “David Chernicky recognized the potential of this very early on.”

 

Chernicky, however, was growing impatient with consulting and watching other companies botch his handiwork. Dewatering was a precise science, and he felt he could make it work better by controlling every facet of the operation. “Oil companies kept f---ing up my oil fields, so I figured I was ready to try it on my own,” he says. He started New Dominion with two other partners in 1998. By the early 2000s the company was operating more than 100 wells, producing a total of 4,000 to 5,000 barrels of oil a day, plus millions of cubic feet of gas.

And so Chernicky started the trend of reinjecting wastewater right back into the ground from which oil was pumped, replacing one natural resource, oil, with the potential of a natural disaster, earthquake.

This is hardly new: Dan Boyd, a petroleum geologist at the OGS, was well aware of previous instances where injecting fluid deep underground caused earthquakes. In 1961 the U.S. Army drilled a 12,000-foot disposal well in the Rocky Mountains to get rid of millions of gallons of toxic waste from napalm production and other sources. Shortly after injection began, quakes began rattling the nearby Denver area, including a 5.3-magnitude temblor in 1967. A year after injection stopped, the seismic activity faded. Boyd believed the wastewater pouring out of Chernicky’s disposal wells might trigger similar activity in Oklahoma. “I’d never seen a well that could put away as much water as Deep Throat,” he says.

He was right:

On the night of Dec. 20, 2006, Boyd’s fears were realized. A few minutes after 8 p.m., residents on the southeast edge of Oklahoma City heard a loud boom, followed by a sharp jolt that shook people’s houses. Four hours later, just after midnight, it happened again. Calls flooded into police and fire emergency lines. The initial fear was that something had happened at nearby Tinker Air Force Base—an explosion, an attack—but by the next morning, scientists at the OGS determined the area had been struck by two earthquakes. “It was an epiphany,” says Boyd.

 

In January 2007, New Dominion opened a second disposal well near Oklahoma City called Sweetheart. A month later, a small swarm of quakes struck nearby. In March, Boyd and three other scientists at the OGS drove to Tulsa for a four-hour meeting with New Dominion. The meeting was hosted by Steve Chernicky, New Dominion’s director of field operations and David’s brother. David also showed up, Boyd recalls, wearing a golf shirt and Bermuda shorts. He placed three or four mobile phones in front of him on the conference room table and excused himself from the meeting each time one rang. While nobody accused New Dominion of causing the earthquakes, there was a “tacit understanding that the well had something to do with this,” says Boyd. “Everybody in the room was thinking about earthquakes. The correlation was obvious.”

But, just like Wall Street's now confirmed criminal banks, Chernicky covered up the potentially disastrous aftermath of his actions in the future by generously bribing the people here and now. Or, as it is known in financial parlance, lobbying.

As Chernicky looked for other dewatering opportunities, he found a lot of rundown communities whose oil had run out decades earlier and needed some help. In Carney, he gave $10,000 to finish a high school. In Prague, he donated $1 million for a city water expansion project and $50,000 to help build a new library. In January 2006, after a busy wildfire season, he donated $15,000 to local fire departments. He also started throwing an annual party in Prague called New Dominion Dayz to raise scholarship money for local students. Kids played on inflatable bouncing slides. Riding lawn mowers were given out as raffle prizes. A highlight was Chernicky in the dunk tank. In news articles, Prague’s city manager called Chernicky the “T. Boone Pickens of Prague.”

 

Chernicky’s largesse has helped to deflect attention from the role New Dominion may be playing in the crescendo of earthquakes across Oklahoma. The record 5.7 quake that hit Prague in November 2011 was the second of a trio that rumbled through over a four-day period, all measuring 5 or higher on the Richter scale. An air-conditioning duct fell through the ceiling of the Prague library Chernicky had helped build. Library Director Pam Batson got some cracks in her home, though she says she’s grateful for the donations from companies such as New Dominion. “It’s sort of like a double-edged sword,” she says

And so, as long as the bribes, pardon handouts, keep flowing (as does the oil) everyone can stick their head in the sand to what is painfully obvious. Sure enough, "for the moment, there’s little political pressure on Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry to change the way it operates. Republican Governor Mary Fallin has long claimed there isn’t enough information to determine what’s causing the quakes. She describes the OGS’s new position statement as “significant.” But when asked if the governor agrees that the industry is likely responsible for the quakes, her spokesman, Alex Weintz, didn’t respond."

Local politicians know that doing the right thing means putting their own career in jeopardy as it may lead to thousands of layoffs, not to mention an end to the bribers, pardon, lobbying:

At the Statehouse, the only two lawmakers willing to talk openly about the issue are Democrat Cory Williams and Republican Jason Murphey, who represent districts that have been shaken by quakes. Last fall they teamed up on a bill to study the quakes in greater depth, but so far nothing’s come of it. “It’s ridiculous,” says Williams, who’s pushing a moratorium on wastewater injection in 16 Oklahoma counties. “The oil industry threatens us by saying if you touch seismicity issues we’ll start laying down rigs and laying people off. This is the problem of having industry so intertwined with government. We know what’s causing it, and we are doing absolutely nothing to stop it and barely anything to regulate it.”

That may soon change however, thanks to an unexpected outside influence: the Saudi's pounce on US shale as the global "marginal" producer, which in turn is crushing the price of oil, and making shale increasingly unprofitable.

These are challenging days for New Dominion. Dewatering is among the most expensive ways to produce oil, and with crude trading at around $50 a barrel, down from $100 last summer, New Dominion’s fields likely aren’t as profitable as they once were. “This is the first time in over 20 years that I haven’t had a single drilling rig working for me,” Chernicky says. The company won’t hold its New Dominion Dayz festival this year. In January, Chernicky sued several former business partners, alleging they unduly paid themselves millions in bonuses before the partnership unraveled, a claim the former business partners dispute.

Of course, the price of oil may fall and it may rise, and if it rises enough New Dominion will be right back in the business of injecting millions of gallons of wastewater right into the same ground from whence the oil came, in the process leading to ever more and ever stronger earthquakes.

For now, however, New Dominion is adamant: "it's not our fault."

At New Dominion headquarters, the company promotes its own theories for the astronomic rise in Oklahoma quakes. Jean Antonides, the company’s craggy-faced vice president for exploration, produces a 2-inch-thick cardboard folder stuffed with maps, presentations, and papers—evidence, he says, that the quakes are the result of rapid changes in water levels of underground aquifers caused by drought and heavy rain.

 

Chernicky, for his part, dismisses the research linking earthquakes to wastewater disposal wells. “The meager amount of science put forward is so flawed, it can’t even be considered science,” he says. “It is emotion.” He contends that the Oklahoma quakes are “the result of tectonic activity happening all over the world.” In a year or two, he predicts, the flurry of quakes bedeviling Oklahoma will migrate north into the seismically sleepy states of Iowa and Nebraska, vindicating the oil industry. The vast majority of earthquake scientists disagree. “Pure b.s.,” says Martin Chapman, a geophysics professor at Virginia Tech University. “They just don’t want to admit they’re causing earthquakes.”

 

Chernicky is unswayed. He insists nature’s on his side. If humans can cause an earthquake, then they “can probably fart and shift the orbit of the planet, too.” He adds: “Man does not cause tsunamis in Japan. Man did not cause the volcanic blast at Krakatoa. And man does not cause earthquakes.”

And, as long as everyone - from bribed politicians, to poor citizens demanding the company's "largesse", to bankers funding New Dominion any time's its cash drops dangerously low - is aligned with the company and its business model, nothing will halt the trend of increasingly more frequent and stronger quakes shaking Oklahoma. Until, just like on Wall Street, one day the "big one" - the one that nobody could have possibly predicted - strikes and the sequel to the San Andreas movie is filmed among the ruins where the city of Tulsa once stood.

 

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Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:17 | 6133292 Pool Shark
Pool Shark's picture

 

 

Meet The Man Behind Oklahoma's Earthquake Epidemic

 

Must be a seismologist...

[Or this guy: http://www.007collector.com/bond/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/AVTAK-Christopher-Walken.jpg]

 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:19 | 6133298 InjectTheVenom
InjectTheVenom's picture

Mr Chernicky looks like a real dickhead

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:29 | 6133318 BaBaBouy
BaBaBouy's picture

MONEY MONEY MONEY, Fuck Everybody And Everything, They Just Makin MORE Paper FIATS USD MONEY...

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:58 | 6133710 max2205
max2205's picture

By the looks of him he has to go ugly early a lot.

 

Fuck him qbd the regulators that he paid off

 

Ice nine bitcheeeeezzzzz

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 19:50 | 6134255 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

Funny how he isn't hanging in the hague for crimes against humanity [not to mention the planet which graciously hosts us all].

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:25 | 6133327 El Oregonian
El Oregonian's picture

Michael Buffer on Oklahoma recent fracking earthquakes: "Let's get ready to R-U-M-M-M-B-B-B-L-L-E-E!!!"

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:08 | 6133507 Augustus
Augustus's picture

The earthquakes have nothing to do with fracking.  The article is discussing very deep wells used for disposal of waste water.  Even there, the article is based upon BS.

 

Disposal wells are permitted and approved by the state agencies, despite the claims of the article.

Further, the quakes are caused by release of tension in the rock planes and natural faults.  The water does not create that tension.  It is already there just waiting for enough pressuree to build and snap.  Many are unknown in location, until there is a quake.  You can regularly read of new ones identified in California after the years of study.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:18 | 6133560 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

Geophysicist are ya now.

I beg to differ.

Permitted & approved...

That worked great for agent orange, tobacco, EMF, thalidomide, asbestos.  Next up RoundUp...2065

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:59 | 6133712 SafelyGraze
SafelyGraze's picture

pump the wastewater into the ogallala aquifer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

that way it can serve the needs of corn farmers in nebraska who produce glyphosate-enriched corn chips, corn sweetener, and ethanol to keep the nation prosperous and healthy

hugs,
the corn board

http://www.nebraskacorn.org/corn-production-uses/corn-production/

 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:48 | 6133662 Shad_ow
Shad_ow's picture

Thanks!  It is amazing how gullible some are.  I bet they even belive in man made global warming and the ability of our government to stop it if we only send them more money.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 22:32 | 6134736 ersatz007
ersatz007's picture

Shit - next thing you know those ficking scientists will tell us we'll someday be able to communicate on a world wide network of computers and talk on telephones that don't have no wires.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:26 | 6133330 Rainman
Rainman's picture

Put an SS uniform on him and he'd make a fine specimen of Nazi. 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:48 | 6133431 RadioactiveRant
RadioactiveRant's picture

He would if he didn't have so many links to jewish causes.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:33 | 6133359 Ruffmuff
Ruffmuff's picture

There are so many theories no one in fuck, here or there, knows WTF is real truth.

The game of : "stump the sheeple" is in full force.

Any critical thinker is getting reduced down to" hey look how big my shat was"

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:47 | 6133425 Pool Shark
Pool Shark's picture

 

 

Exactly, thank you.

 

Central California (the San Joaquin Valley) has been using water-flood and steam-injection 'fracking' enhanced recovery techniques for around 50 years; yet the largest earthquake in the region occurred over 60 YEARS AGO in 1952.

I guess all those oil companies must have caused the 1906 San Francisco quake too...

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:09 | 6133515 Augustus
Augustus's picture

Steam injuection and water flood has nothing to do with fracking.  The best analogy would be to washing the oil from the rock.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:37 | 6133383 Magnix
Magnix's picture

Wow, that was quick.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:19 | 6133304 falak pema
falak pema's picture

AN Okkie capitalist? 

Wow, "the grapes of wrath" dust bowl victims  have found an awesome sequel 80 years later ! 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:21 | 6133310 XqWretch
XqWretch's picture

But but but the SHALE REVOLUTION!!!

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:13 | 6133537 Augustus
Augustus's picture

But but but the SHALE REVOLUTION!!!

 

This article has nothing to do with the shale drilling technology.

Porus oil bearing rocks also may have water in those pores.  The guy is draining the naturally occuring water, which did not come from any ocean, btw, and disposing of it in deep wells drilled into other very porus rocks.  Must have high porosity to take the high injection rates.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:31 | 6133826 chunga
chunga's picture

There is profit in causing and cleaning up pollution and either way; there are plenty of "scientists" willing to lie about it all day long.

As usual the gov will use any lies it likes to support bringing the hammer down on anybody that isn't big enough to bribe them. If we knew the truth we'd probably shit our pants about new kinds of ways to pollute for money.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:22 | 6133313 tony wilson and...
tony wilson and saturn zion devils's picture

nice innocent capture

was the foto above
a commission print
a police perp crime picture
or avatar for his profile on the horsemeat anal singles meatup web shite

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:43 | 6133411 Bobbo
Bobbo's picture

Annual report back page photo.  Special for the ladies.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:22 | 6133315 rum_runner
rum_runner's picture

The idea that humans can cause earthquakes is every bit as presposterous as humans causing the climate to change.  I mean, we've been digging wells for thousands of years and they caused no earthquakes.

Pure liberal nonsense.  AmIright?  guys?

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:42 | 6133408 Bobbo
Bobbo's picture

Study up a bit more rum_runner.  YouAin'tRight on this one.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:44 | 6133420 chunga
chunga's picture

Yeah I think it's a natural occurence for the earth to pump "waste water" 12,000' into itself. No way that could be related to earthquakes.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:38 | 6133619 prymythirdeye
prymythirdeye's picture

Learn about frequencies.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:47 | 6133659 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

No you are completely wrong....

Nice try though...

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:50 | 6133892 The Wedge
The Wedge's picture

Nope flakey, you're completely wrong. It's not a nice try. Digging wells has nothing to do with the claim that fracking causes earthquakes. It's an apples to orange invalid comparison. But the experiment geologists did decades ago pumping viscous liquids directly on faults in an attempt to relieve pressure is an apples to apples valid comparison that failed.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 18:25 | 6134001 Crawdaddy
Crawdaddy's picture

These guys have a track record predicting earth quakes ... You be the judge.

http://dutchsinse.com/

 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 19:21 | 6134192 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Sigh...

Do you ever tire of lying to yourself? Or creating flawed strawmen and red herrings as arguments...

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 22:47 | 6134775 squid
squid's picture

See above.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 22:55 | 6134801 ersatz007
ersatz007's picture

While we're at it some more liberal nonsense: GMOs, colony collapse disorder, the Internet, physics, mathematics, fast food is bad, blogs, coal is bad (c'mon y'all know it would be great to live in China), and that most nonsensical thing of all: the scientific method. The only thing that's true in this universe is capitalism - am I right? I mean God forbid one questions the so called science called economic theory - especially the Austrian school of economics and the most elusive fairy tale of them all: "true capitalism" which I am certain NOT ONE could tell of a time when there was such a thing - but fuck if you'll ever get these here ZH folks to believe a lick of that liberal, pansy ass science. Meanwhile they type on their computers into the Internet...none of which would exist without science.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:32 | 6133320 Rusty Shorts
Rusty Shorts's picture

WARNING: searching internet for anything relating to J.o.e  V.i.a.l.l.s may cause you problems, proceed with caution.

 

SECRET 1945 OSS Nuclear Earthquake On Japan: View-to-A-Kill 4REAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l9iRvLoh1E

 

Since this secret paper was written, the modern-day CIA has had sixty years to get its nuclear numbers right - just in time for the shattering war crime against South and South-East Asia which murdered more than 300,000 people on December 26, 2004.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROyTkix0bn4

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:24 | 6133322 tommylicious
tommylicious's picture

NASTY EVIL BASTARD!!

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:27 | 6133337 Q-Q-Q
Q-Q-Q's picture

After a long day in the office he returns home and jetwashes the flowers in his garden.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:27 | 6133338 CHC
CHC's picture

Let's all put his 'fart theory' to the test!

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:28 | 6133340 tommylicious
tommylicious's picture

can you zoom in more on that picture?  

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:39 | 6133393 Zpigs
Zpigs's picture

Ah yes, the refreshing up-close gaze of someone who looks like they fell face first into razor wire.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:29 | 6133343 yrad
yrad's picture

So, actually, this man SAVED OK from the big one?

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:30 | 6133347 taketheredpill
taketheredpill's picture

 

 

How about very tall Peizio-electric towers designed to sway during seismic activity and generate power?

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:39 | 6133396 CaptOveur
CaptOveur's picture

Isn't a 3 on the Richter Scale so weak that you actually have to be at or near the epicenter to feel it? Is there any evidence that these tiny quakes are some harbinger of a larger earthquake? No? Snooze.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:16 | 6133552 Augustus
Augustus's picture

Correct.  A mag 3 can barely be felt.  However it is a log value scale so that a mag 4 is 10X more powerful.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:39 | 6133397 Bastiat
Bastiat's picture

That is one MISERABLE looking man.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:56 | 6133467 Saucy-Jack
Saucy-Jack's picture

He pays for pussy...or boy ass...whatever his preference.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:40 | 6133400 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

Swap lethal injection of Timmy McVeigh ( let him join Warburg's ) for Timmy Geithner; shit too late.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:42 | 6133407 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

I fondled with the sun. Couldn't make new CME's. It's crap game on climate change. 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:50 | 6133436 tony wilson and...
tony wilson and saturn zion devils's picture

blow the picture up above as big as you can
this fella is like rasputin
his eyes follow you around the room
what a love machine

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:53 | 6133453 Jtrillian
Jtrillian's picture

MOAR!!!

 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:53 | 6133454 Earl Slaughter-...
Earl Slaughter-- Truck Driver.'s picture

Privatize the profits, socialize the costs-- it's the Amerikan way.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 15:55 | 6133461 Saucy-Jack
Saucy-Jack's picture

HAARP is creating earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and weather changes all over the globe.

Weather is the new atomic bomb.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:05 | 6133500 RyeWhiskey
RyeWhiskey's picture

"The Deep Throat Recovery" by Krugman.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:13 | 6133539 smithmorra
smithmorra's picture

He gives a lot to "good" charities; all is forgiven....And if he were Catholic the priest would absolve him of all his terrible sins, but God won't....

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:14 | 6133543 gwar5
gwar5's picture

I don't care about all the babyquakes becaue it's still better than fighting headhunters to get oil from MENA.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:09 | 6133751 lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

He who can Produce  Energy Shall Control the Earth...

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 19:09 | 6133548 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

>>>>>“I try to pick the ugly girl at the dance,” Chernicky says.

To match his ugly mug. Queen Mary is more than likely getting paid handsomely. Even more damning is the insurance industry. They're more than happy to load you up with quake insurance with one tiny caveat. No payout for manmade quakes. Now this is going to get real funny on proving liability. The 50 yr rule if you will, like every other devestating POS from agent orange, thalidomide, tobacco, asbestos and on and on.

Just like exclusion 32 now in insurance policies (hear that Googledy Glass Barnaby), damages from non-ionizing radiation will now be the responsibility of the land owner in the case of a cell tower. Smart meters should prove to be amusing as the CEO of my provider just retired. What timing. As far as your use of wifi, bluetooth, cell & cordless phones, baby monitors, towers...it's all been spelled out by insurance underwriters. They KNOW.

These Satanist bastids won't be satisfied until the largest aquifer in the country is toxic. May they reach their final destination expeditiously. Burn baby burn.

 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:37 | 6133615 curbyourrisk
curbyourrisk's picture

And just think....  THIS happened well before FRACKING was even dreamed of.

 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-great-midwest-earthquake-of-1811-46342/?no-ist

 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 16:42 | 6133643 cwsuisse
cwsuisse's picture

It would have been quite interesting to read a bit about the commercial successes (or failures) of earthquake - dad. 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:13 | 6133752 Rob Jones
Rob Jones's picture

Southern CA has hundreds of M3.0+ earthquakes every year. Few people are even aware of them.

Get back to me when OK starts having M6.0+ earthquakes,

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:12 | 6133762 Wahooo
Wahooo's picture

We quaked some folks.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:40 | 6133857 Sanity Bear
Sanity Bear's picture

I can't be the only one reminded of Angelo Mozillo when I look at that guy's pic

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:41 | 6133859 DipshitMiddleCl...
DipshitMiddleClassWhiteKid's picture

its nice to see an enterprising ukranian

 

wild catting is a WASPs game

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 17:50 | 6133890 MasterControl
MasterControl's picture

Earthquakes are cause by the sun.
Anyone who thinks waste water from hydro fracturing causes earthquakes is an idiot and a danger to a free society. 

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 22:45 | 6134764 squid
squid's picture

Really?

 

Dr Bruce A. Bolt from USC Berkley is an idiot then, acording to you of course.

 

In his book, "Earthquakes", fifth edition, chapter 4, page 90, "The Effect of Water on Rocks Beneath the Surface" he goes on to explain how this mechanism works and quotes the case of the US Army's "Rocky Mountain aresenal" northeast of Denver in the late sixties and eary seventies.

A few pints to note:

1. "Earthquakes" is THE introductory TEXT in siesmology, its in EVERY university book store and owned by every peron who has ever taken siesmology,

2. Its in its fifth edition, meaning, its not crap. Crap books don't make it to 5th editions,

3. It is by one of the most read and respected experts in the business.

 

So Master, I'm afraid I have to call bullshit on you.

 

Fracking, the process of injecting high pressure water into a formation to force up the hydrocarbon condensate, DOES increase earthquakte activity.

 

Have a nice day Master.

 

Your friend, Squid.

 

Wed, 05/27/2015 - 00:49 | 6135046 Joe A
Joe A's picture

I think -and hope- he was being sarcastic. But there are plenty who would be saying that 'correlation is not causation'.

Wed, 05/27/2015 - 02:29 | 6135153 ersatz007
ersatz007's picture

Yep- there are lots of folks here who think they understand science and say stuff like "correlation is not causation". I guess because a lot of them took economics and finance courses in college which are basically fancier versions of sociology and psychology with some math and ideas about money, human behavior and had to do some charts here and there. So they say things like "parabolic" and as a result think they're qualified to talk about everything science under the sun like climate change, GMOs, fracking (geology, seismology, etc) and a whole bunch of other shit about which they're completely clueless. The other adorable thing about this particular type of critter is they wildly dismiss the science they don't like with claims that ALL scientists are corrupt - yet somehow they conveniently forget this latter part when it comes to the (pseudo)science they like. Oh and the Austrian school of economists - they're the ONLY other folks whose motives are pure.

Wed, 05/27/2015 - 02:29 | 6135154 ersatz007
ersatz007's picture

Yep- there are lots of folks here who think they understand science and say stuff like "correlation is not causation". I guess because a lot of them took economics and finance courses in college which are basically fancier versions of sociology and psychology with some math and ideas about money, human behavior and had to do some charts here and there. So they say things like "parabolic" and as a result think they're qualified to talk about everything science under the sun like climate change, GMOs, fracking (geology, seismology, etc) and a whole bunch of other shit about which they're completely clueless. The other adorable thing about this particular type of critter is they wildly dismiss the science they don't like with claims that ALL scientists are corrupt - yet somehow they conveniently forget this latter part when it comes to the (pseudo)science they like. Oh and the Austrian school of economists - they're the ONLY other folks whose motives are pure.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 18:12 | 6133958 laser
laser's picture

If earth quakes are the result of the release of pressure built up over time between plates in the earth's crust, and if that pressure continues to build until an eventual release, perhaps we have stumbled upon a method of preventing much more severe quakes at a later date.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 19:04 | 6134140 The Wedge
The Wedge's picture

It was tried decades ago with no success.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 18:26 | 6134005 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

The ugly girl at the dance must coincide with deep throat IMHO. This wildcatter is sure a piece of work when it comes to 'American Exceptionalism', and all, eh.

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 19:08 | 6134159 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

Someone on Wall Street wants to fuck Chernicky out of his business. This is as transparent a smear job as it gets.

Wed, 05/27/2015 - 00:33 | 6135027 UrbanBard
UrbanBard's picture

The article assumes that Oklahome has no earthquake fault or heoologically active zones. But, there are.

 

Small earth quakes (3.0 to 3.5) are barely noticable. They are like a loaded dump truck passing on the the road outside. It cann be assumned that the small quakes are allowing minor adjustment in the Tectonic plates. Oklahoma is not that far away from New Madrid, Mo (8.5 on Richter scale) where the largest quake in the last two centuries in Central US happened.

So, earthquakes are normal. Small ones are happening everywhere. They occur in the oddest places. no reason to panic. Or point fingers.

Wed, 05/27/2015 - 00:50 | 6135050 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Wow, just like Papa Bear...

Tide goes in, tide goes out, no body knows, it just happens...

\facepalm

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