What has caused all the earthquakes lately?

[vvvvvvv]

There are ALOT fracking sites within about a mile OR LESS of each of the last 20 or so epicenters... just saying.

There are 181 injection wells in OK.

"It was concluded that injection well operations were indeed responsible for the earthquake swarms, and on Feb. 22, 1966 well operations were permanently discontinued."

http://wapi.isu.edu/EnvGeo/sample_papers/dwi.pdf

Comparing injection wells and Oklahoma gas/oil fracked wells is comparing apples to oranges.

 

[ronny]

I anybody truly believes that drilling 6" to 9" hole in the ground to around 5000' depth and pumping a little water into it can cause an earthquake that can be felt from Kansas to Texas, I want some of what you are smoking!

Veggie's exactly right. There are far more wells in the western half of Oklahoma than the eastern half. And I won't even mention the Texas panhandle...

Up front, I'll say I don't believe that water-flooding has caused these quakes.

However, you have to keep in mind that all structural geology is not the same. If you have a faulted area and inject water into it, under pressure, it serves to lubricate the opposing surfaces of the fault. If it's under tension, this will make it more likely to slip. It is possible.

 

[Honey Badger]

Guys the oil wells in OK have NOTHING to do with it. The processes that cause Earthquakes takes hundreda of thousands of years to take place. There are two types of plates. Oceanic and Continental. The oceanic plate pushes underneath the continental plate in a process called "subduction", thus causing the continental plate to push inwardly on itself. The processes we are experiencing have been at work for hundreds of thousands of years. All the drilling for oil wells EVER could not cause these earthquakes. Hundreds of thousands of years of unimaginable pressure on the tectonic plates and fault lines in this area are what is causing these earthquakes.

 

[SMS]

Up front, I'll say I don't believe that water-flooding has caused these quakes.

However, you have to keep in mind that all structural geology is not the same. If you have a faulted area and inject water into it, under pressure, it serves to lubricate the opposing surfaces of the fault. If it's under tension, this will make it more likely to slip. It is possible.

So there are more wells out west. Question is, are there fault lines/plate boundries out west? If not, the comparison between the number of eastern and western wells versus quakes isn't relevent is it?

 

[Dave70968]

Up front, I'll say I don't believe that water-flooding has caused these quakes.

However, you have to keep in mind that all structural geology is not the same. If you have a faulted area and inject water into it, under pressure, it serves to lubricate the opposing surfaces of the fault. If it's under tension, this will make it more likely to slip. It is possible.

Wouldn't that be a good thing, then? If they're under tension, they'll slip eventually. If the fault gets lubricated, it will slip at a lower tension (energy) level, producing a much smaller (less destructive) quake. More frequent, but much less damaging.

 

[ronny]

Wouldn't that be a good thing, then? If they're under tension, they'll slip eventually. If the fault gets lubricated, it will slip at a lower tension (energy) level, producing a much smaller (less destructive) quake. More frequent, but much less damaging.

A fault under tension is gonna go, sooner or later. Who knows how it will release. Lubricating it could make it do just as you sayl On the other hand, the lubrication could cause a free-er and larger release. Without lubrication, the slippage might be of greater frequency and smaller shock. The variables are many.

 

[Honey Badger]

Wouldn't that be a good thing, then? If they're under tension, they'll slip eventually. If the fault gets lubricated, it will slip at a lower tension (energy) level, producing a much smaller (less destructive) quake. More frequent, but much less damaging.

NO... It wouldn't make any difference at all. Lubrication is irrelevant when you have up to 1000 KiloMeters of rock the under tremendous pressue. This equates to billions of tons of rocks. A little bit of water or oil in that case would make no difference at all.

 

[Billybob]

Comparing injection wells and Oklahoma gas/oil fracked wells is comparing apples to oranges.

Injection wells are a direct part of fracking.

[According to the Associated Press, there are 181 such injection wells in the vicinity of Saturday’s Oklahoma quake and Sunday’s aftershocks. AP also reported Oklahoma typically only experienced about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009 when that number spiked dramatically. Last year there were 1,047 small quakes in the area, prompting the installation of seismographs.]

http://coloradoindependent.com/1051...questions-about-hydrofracking-injection-wells

 

[Silverbullit]

Obama just spoke - It was George Bush's fault.

 

[Toney]

When i worked in the oil field we drilled a lot of wells east of prauge that flowed hundreds of barrels a day. They had pressure check valves on then. While drywatching the rig and it was'nt running you could hear them wells pop off from over a mile away. Was almost scarry, louder than a train.
I wonder?