![]() The USGS suggested that that event was triggered by fluid injection.Ĭhristi Craddick, chair of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas production in that state, said that information to date indicates that the quakes are not caused by fracking. The state’s biggest recorded quake, a magnitude 5.6, occurred in 2011 and damaged a number of homes and a historic building. ![]() The state and the US Geological Survey warned a year ago that the growing number of events has “significantly increased” the threat of a damaging earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or greater. The current rate of seismic activity is 600 times greater than its historical occurrence and “is very unlikely the result of a natural process,” the report said. The earthquakes are occurring in an area of the state where wastewater disposal volumes have significantly increased over the last several years, it noted. Only a small percentage of the wastewater injected into so-called Class II disposal wells comes from fracking operations, the agency stated. This water is then separated and re-injected into disposal wells, often at greater depth from which it was produced.” As the oil and gas is extracted/produced, so is the water. ![]() “Produced water is naturally occurring within the Earth that is often high in salinity and coexists with oil and gas in the subsurface. “The primary suspected source of triggered seismicity is not from hydraulic fracturing,” which accounts for only a small percentage of the wastewater, the report stated. Instead, the agency attributed the increase to the practice of injecting wastewater from oil and gas drilling operations-including but not limited to fracked production-into deep disposal wells.Īccording to a 21 April report from the survey, the average number of magnitude 3 or greater temblors within the state has grown to 2½ per day, up from last year’s rate of 2 per week, and a historic average of 1½ per year. The Oklahoma Geological Survey has cleared hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as the cause of a skyrocketing incidence of small earthquakes in the state.
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