Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.

How Fracking Causes Earthquakes, But Not the One in Virginia

August 26, 2011 | 11:00 AM
By Susan Phillips

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Bran­don Ben­ning­ton helps clean up after Tuesday’s earth­quake knocked food off super­mar­ket shelves in Min­eral, Va.

Soon after the 5.9 earth­quake struck Min­eral, Va. on Tues­day the inter­net was buzzing with spec­u­la­tion that frack­ing could have caused the rare east coast quake. It turns out that inject­ing large amounts of fluid deep into the earth can result in “micro-quakes.”

Geol­o­gist James Cole­man, who works for the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey, says frack­ing can cre­ate quakes, but not those as large as the one in Virginia.

“It’s pretty clear that in some areas, under­ground injec­tion of waste­water causes rel­a­tively small earth­quakes, smaller than what we had here in Vir­ginia, but dis­turb­ing to some peo­ple,” said Coleman.

Frack­ing has been linked by some geol­o­gists to small earth­quakes in Arkansas, Col­orado, and Eng­land. But an indus­try offi­cial assured Cole­man on Tues­day that Min­eral, Va. has not been the site of any fracking.

Recent quakes in Col­orado have prompted some sci­en­tists to start look­ing into the con­nec­tion between earth­quakes and fracking.

Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1370235234 David Mcfa­tridge

    ” But an indus­try offi­cial assured Cole­man on Tues­day that Min­eral, Va. has not been the site of any frack­ing” This state­ment can be so mis­lead­ing. No frack­ing within the city lim­its of Min­eral Va? Dont drink the cool aid Mr. Cole­man. Vir­ginia has 75 class II injec­tion wells where the Oil & Gas inject frack flow­back. Injec­tion wells cre­ate earth­quakes, look at cor­re­la­tion of the two. How close is Min­eral Va to one of these injec­tion wells???

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1370235234 David Mcfa­tridge
  • John Gar­rett

    Dumb and dumber.

  • JB

    poor jour­nal­ism. The arti­cle is titled “How Frack­ing Causes Earth­quakes”. But noth­ing is explained as to how frack­ing causes quakes. While it is appar­ent that this may be pos­si­ble, the ver­dict is not yet in. this is poor journalism.

    • Savethe­p­lace

      So…are you against frack­ing or against bad journalism?

  • At

    Let’s not for­get that frack­ing is the biggest atroc­ity of the energy indus­try against the beat­i­ful nature of Amer­ica and its cit­i­zens. Look into this sub­ject.. Typ­i­cal how in the U.S. Hal­ibur­ton & co. get away with it. With the help of pre­vi­ous VP Cheney. It does not sur­prise me that it has not been out­lawed yet.

    • Savethe­p­lace

      I am a Con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can and even I rec­og­nize the insan­ity of frack­ing. Inde­pen­dence from for­eign oil is one thing, but not at the expense of geo­log­i­cal den­si­ties, com­mu­nity water tables, and the health of Amer­i­cans. Frack­ing MUST be stopped.

  • Not Con­fused

    Sure sci­en­tists will look into it and then cor­po­ra­tions will go for profit above all car­ing for humans or the earth.

    • Yoosjunkmail

      It really is a shame how govt is in bed with these corporations!

      • Rsocks

        I fear its worse than that. Our gov­ern­ment is the corporations.

        • http://twitter.com/skibebe Terri Lynn Sullivan

          Yes Rsocks, you said it so well.  Our gov­ern­ment (Feds in par­tic­u­lar) IS the corporations.…..not sure which side more cor­rupt but I side with FED Gov­ern­ment here.  (impor­tant to dis­tin­guish as the U.S. Gov’t does much good for our soci­ety in many area.….including those state orgs that han­dle clean­ing up our water/air qual­ity try­ing to reduce can­cer rated CAUSED by these cor­rupt corporations/gov’t oper­a­tions) There is a direct cor­re­la­tion with so many facets of this corporate/government cozy sleep­ing arrange­ment, with these cor­po­ra­tions prof­it­ing from detri­men­tal doings at expense of the Amer­i­can peo­ple. On an environmental/health stand­point,  I love how kids movies today are dri­ving mes­sage to next gen­er­a­tion (The Lorax, Wall-E).  AND per­haps even more cor­rupt and detri­men­tal to our nation as a whole is the mil­i­tary indus­trial com­plex (on an eco­nom­i­cal, envi­ron­men­tal, spir­i­tual, emo­tional level).…..an $800billion plus indus­try with mar­ket­ing spin “pro­tect­ing national secu­rity and ‘free­doms”, this cor­rup­tion, which has always ONLY been dri­ven by Wall Street and its cronies advis­ing our Pres­i­dents and Con­gress on what is “good for our coun­try” based on war prof­i­teer­ing agenda.…holding onto false past finan­cial brava­dos of FDR days when we “became so pros­per­ous from mega defense spend­ing”.  This overbloated mil­i­tary indus­trial com­plex, which goes against strong warn­ings of five of our Found­ing Fathers, has been dis­gust­ingly embroiled into every fab­ric, cor­ner­stone, avenue of so many cor­po­ra­tions, toy man­u­fac­tur­ers extolling “virtues” over vio­lent themes/toys.….it’s like the worse spread of can­cer through­out our nation.  We are becom­ing such a police state, its’s look­ing like Hitler him­self rose from the dead and is at the helm of our nation. and though there are more and more Amer­i­can peo­ple wak­ing up to this fact.…..there will always be the few frozen into prim­i­tive space and time, hold­ing onto false ambi­tions of what is “Patri­o­tism” or “pro-American”.….because after all, were we not “founded on a Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War”?  It is all so hgihly correlated.….profits before the people.…..toxic prof­its that is.  We should be focused on POSITIVE things, clean energy, stop play­ing global cop at gun­point bring­ing Amer­i­can free­doms down, syn­thetic “Made in USA” ter­ror­ist attacks fuel­ing the angry masses.  Why don’t we be Happy Birds rather than Angry Birds?

  • Not Con­fused

    Sure sci­en­tists will look into it and then cor­po­ra­tions will go for profit above all car­ing for humans or the earth.

  • Anony­mous

    “Frack­ing has been linked by some geol­o­gists to small earth­quakes in Arkansas, Col­orado, and Eng­land. But an indus­try offi­cial assured Cole­man on Tues­day that Min­eral, Va. has not been the site of any fracking.”

    OK…we can all rest assured that indus­try offi­cials never lie.…and pigs can fly.

  • Bil­lie

    What a poorly writ­ten arti­cle and title. The author has referred to one state­ment from a gov­ern­ment offi­cial and one state­ment from and indus­try insider, but no facts to back up either state­ment. This is garbage.

  • Gfawker

    The Earth quakes in Col­orado weren’t that much smaller… there is a con­nec­tion. Look beyond the indus­try spin, the story is still infolding.

  • Anony­mous

    This is just awful! We must do some­thing.
    Frack­ing has also been linked to Hur­ri­cane Irene, plague of stink bugs, too many Chi­ro­prac­tors and I am pretty sure the death of Elvis.

    If we don’t stop them NOW, we will be awash in low cost, clean burn­ing energy! And our favorite “green” energy pro­grams won’t survive!

    More Wind­mills now.

  • brando

    how does he know that it didn’t cause the earth­quake in virginia?

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