What has caused all the earthquakes lately?

[WhiteyMacD]

You guys ALL got it wrong.. The real cause is all the tunnels the damned Mexicans are digging under the border to smuggle coke and gardeners north of the border.

Actually, I blame it on God's wrath for 'publicans misrepresenting him in politics.

 

[Robert871]

forget where or when i was required to watch this film, but it was a documentary blaming fracking for releasing natural gas (or at least i believe it was nat gas..) into the water table or wells, anyways, had some semi amusing footage of people lighting the water from their kitchen sinks on fire.

youtube video of a news piece that is not from the documentary, dunno where to find it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYJj-1jNOxE&feature=related

 

[RedTape]

It's just Oklahoma gearing up for 2012

In reality these are pretty small earthquakes. I'm not sure why so many people are concerned about them. The plates move...always have, always will...and this is the result.

 

[Gideon]

This is good. We want more earthquakes. There are over 10,000 in Oklahoma EVERY YEAR, and the more the better. If the line does not release pressure slowly and lightly, it will build up stress and break all at once like the many faults in California.

 

[BadgeBunny]

This is good. We want more earthquakes. There are over 10,000 in Oklahoma EVERY YEAR, and the more the better. If the line does not release pressure slowly and lightly, it will build up stress and break all at once like the many faults in California.

Thank you. When the one happened last night I didn't even look up from my reading.

 

[vvvvvvv]

mostly these include contamination of the ground water and such. the reason they frack wells is to increase production once they slow, or to boost production for wells which are in ground layers with qualities that basically encapsulate like a hard sponge, kind of like and oil ore if you can think of it like that, the substance is there, but it cant be sipped out because its so strongly held in its place by sediment and rock. so they find these creative ways of getting it out. fracking, they dont just pour some water down the hole and magically get more oil or gas or whatever they are after back out. they mostly use a thick hydrolic substance, some times on the consistency of a strong soap as he described it, then they force expansion in the "hole" using very strong hydrolic rams to increase the pressure and break the encapsulating sediment, and uh oh. what do you know, the damned well was close to someones water well, oops.

<snip>

i know this crap is weird and everyone is looking to point fingers at why its happening, but was i the only person paying attention in public school? i mean we had several times when these people came to give presentations to us about oklahomas seismic activity. i mean we even had a drill for it in elementary, first they told us to hide under our desks, then a month later they quickly informed us to gtfo of the building. lol.

First, fracking is done significantly lower than the local aquifer. And even then, it's very well targeted.

Second, we didn't have those kinds of things in public school. The only lecture we got from the outside was from D.A.R.E., which made us all more curious about drugs. And the only drills we did was a fire drill at the start of each semester.

 

[Shadowrider]

....but, i do have to say that from what i understand fracking is not as simple and harmless as you detail in your words. (I was being sarcastic, but in the grand scheme of things my statement is correct.)

my organic chem instructor worked for dow and was contracted to a number of drilling operations of all kinds, and when he found ways to talk about his experiences in his lectures. some of his favorites were when he was in court providing his scientific findings on some resulting problems with fracking. mostly these include contamination of the ground water and such. the reason they frack wells is to increase production once they slow, or to boost production for wells which are in ground layers with qualities that basically encapsulate like a hard sponge, kind of like and oil ore if you can think of it like that, the substance is there, but it cant be sipped out because its so strongly held in its place by sediment and rock. so they find these creative ways of getting it out. fracking, they dont just pour some water down the hole and magically get more oil or gas or whatever they are after back out. they mostly use a thick hydrolic substance, some times on the consistency of a strong soap as he described it, then they force expansion in the "hole" using very strong hydrolic rams to increase the pressure and break the encapsulating sediment, and uh oh. what do you know, the damned well was close to someones water well, oops. (yea, I know what it is, I'm in the business. How many years ago was this professor involved in hydraulic fracturing? There is a learning process with everything and accidents happen with everything in life. For a good while now the process has been very very safe. They seal the bore above AND below the zone they are fraccing. This is actually necessary for building the pressure needed, but also serves to seal it off from other formations, aquifers, etc. Drilling is highly regulated in every state too.)

it sounds like a brutal method, and i could see it doing some structural damage to the ground in some areas (very highly, extremely unlikely), but not having a geology degree, i would tend to believe this would only be the case with very very shallow operations. (correct. fraccing is done VERY FAR under any depth a water well will draw from. Have you ever heard of a 5000 to 10000' water well? Also bear in mind that they are pulling the gas from about an 6" to 8" well bore. They aren't busting up the rock for miles in every direction or anything remotely like that. Usually the intervals are just a few feet.)

See above....

 

[Biggsly]

Most people no the basic operation of stimulating a well bore, but no ideal how it really works.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Where was all those underground nuclear tests done, was it Nevada? How come Nevada hasn't sunk to the core of the Earth or up orbiting the Earth in a geosynchronous orbit, or on it's way to mars?

Blaming these quakes on fracking is a fracking lie.

Woody

 

[vvvvvvv]

Where was all those underground nuclear tests done, was it Nevada? How come Nevada hasn't sunk to the core of the Earth or up orbiting the Earth in a geosynchronous orbit, or on it's way to mars?

Well, Nevada is sinking, but not because of nuclear explosions.