{"id":27091,"date":"2016-08-11T14:15:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T19:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=27091"},"modified":"2016-08-11T12:26:57","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T17:26:57","slug":"slowing-earthquake-rate-could-be-tied-to-increased-regulation-and-decreased-oil-field-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2016\/08\/11\/slowing-earthquake-rate-could-be-tied-to-increased-regulation-and-decreased-oil-field-activity\/","title":{"rendered":"Slowing Earthquake Rate Could Be Tied to Increased Regulation and Decreased Oil-Field Activity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_27095\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27095\" alt=\"A disposal well in northwestern Oklahoma operated by Newfield Exploration Mid-Continent.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/08\/20160226-alva-quake-team-pics010_WEB.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/08\/20160226-alva-quake-team-pics010_WEB.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/08\/20160226-alva-quake-team-pics010_WEB-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/08\/20160226-alva-quake-team-pics010_WEB-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/08\/20160226-alva-quake-team-pics010_WEB-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A disposal well in northwestern Oklahoma operated by Newfield Exploration Mid-Continent.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Oklahoma is still experiencing an unusually large amount of shaking, but the rate of earthquakes recorded in 2016 is down from last year.<!--more--><\/p><p>The slowdown is likely due to reductions in the amount of waste-fluid the oil industry is pumping into disposal wells, which are <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/tag\/earthquakes\/\">thought to be causing<\/a> most of the shaking.<\/p><p>And there are two big reasons for those fluid volume cutbacks: Increased regulation, and a decrease in oil and gas activity, U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Robert Williams <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation\/2016\/08\/10\/increased-regulation-may-easing-oklahoma-earthquakes\/88518128\/\">tells<\/a> <i>USA Today<\/i>&#8216;s Ryan W. Miller:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Regulators this year increased restrictions limiting wastewater disposal and expanded the area in the state those constraints cover, Williams said. At the same time, a decrease in oil and gas activity led to a smaller volume of water being disposed of, also potentially contributing to fewer quakes, he added.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>And, while the overall rate of quakes is down, Oklahoma is still shaking at historically high levels, Miller reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While the overall rate of earthquakes is down, the temblors are still happening regularly in Oklahoma. In the past 30 days, 26 earthquakes with a magnitude-3.0 or greater have hit the state, according to USGS data. A magnitude-4.0 rocked an area just outside Oklahoma City early Wednesday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oklahoma is still experiencing an unusually large amount of shaking, but the rate of earthquakes recorded in 2016 is down from last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":27095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490],"tags":[390,489,500,238],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27091"}],"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\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27091"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27130,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27091\/revisions\/27130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}