{"id":18531,"date":"2014-02-19T15:08:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T21:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=18531"},"modified":"2014-02-20T09:07:14","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T15:07:14","slug":"nearly-all-oklahoma-quakes-are-near-injection-wells-but-so-is-most-of-the-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/02\/19\/nearly-all-oklahoma-quakes-are-near-injection-wells-but-so-is-most-of-the-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly All Oklahoma Quakes Are Near Injection Wells, But So Is Most of the State"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oklahoma Geological Survey \u2014 which monitors seismic activity in the state \u2014 continues to acknowledged in a Feb. 17 position statement <\/a>that “both fluid injection and withdrawal in the subsurface can trigger earthquakes,”\u00a0but stopped short of blaming the oil and gas industry for increased temblors in recent years.<\/p>

The vast majority of Oklahoma quakes happen within a few miles of injection wells, but the statement throws some cold water on a connection between the two.<\/p>\n

About 80% of the State is within 15 kilometers (9 miles) of an Underground Injection Control (UIC) Class II water disposal or enhanced oil recovery injection well. For this reason, identifying possible induced or triggered seismicity requires more scientific evidence than simply identifying spatial correlations. It is also important to note that about 99% of the earthquakes that have occurred in Oklahoma over the past few years also lie within 9 miles of a UIC Class II well.<\/p><\/blockquote>

That doesn’t mean injection wells aren’t the cause of the earthquake uptick, just that there are too many injection wells to be sure, and more evidence is needed.<\/p>

But while OGS gathers more evidence, many scientists have seen more than enough to convince them of a link, as StateImpact has reported<\/a>.<\/p>

University of Oklahoma seismologist Katie Keranen, who has studied a 5.6 earthquake that hit Oklahoma in November 2011, found the link between the \u201czone of injection\u201d and the seismic activity \u201ccompelling.\u201d There are three deep injection wells within two-and-a-half miles of that quake\u2019s epicenter, according to\u00a0Energy Wire<\/a>.<\/p>

And if you really want to wrap your head around how injections wells might cause earthquakes, check out StateImpact reporter Joe Wertz’ handy video on the issue<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That doesn’t mean injection wells aren’t the cause of the earthquake uptick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490],"tags":[489,500],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18531"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18555,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18531\/revisions\/18555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}