{"id":34397,"date":"2014-02-11T10:25:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T16:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=34397"},"modified":"2014-02-11T10:25:22","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T16:25:22","slug":"whats-causing-quakes-smu-scientists-aim-to-finish-seismic-study-in-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/02\/11\/whats-causing-quakes-smu-scientists-aim-to-finish-seismic-study-in-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Causing Quakes? SMU Scientists Aim To Finish Seismic Study In Two Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h4>\n
\"SMU<\/a>

Hillsman Jackson \/ SMU<\/p>

SMU professor Heather DeShon leads a team of researchers that is studying seismic activity in the Azle-Reno area for the next six months to a year.<\/p><\/div>\n

From KERA News:<\/a><\/h4>\n

Researchers from Southern Methodist University say folks shouldn’t\u00a0rush to conclusions about what’s been causing the swarm of more than 30 earthquakes northwest of Fort Worth since November.<\/p>\n

Scientists have installed a temporary seismic network in and around the earthquake swarm to help gain a better understanding of the quakes.<\/p>\n

On Friday, in the basement of SMU\u2019s Department of Earth Sciences, professors gathered in front of colorful waves from seismic stations.<\/p>\n

Professor Brian Stump is part of SMU\u2019s research team. He said those waves are what they use to pinpoint earthquakes, and more carefully examine each acceleration.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking about how earthquakes generate waves,\u201d Stump says. \u201cThat may be too technical, but it does help you understand what you\u2019re feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand earthquakes, consider what happens when you drop a rock in a pond, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see the waves spread out from that rock,\u201d Stump says. \u201cAnd they get farther and farther apart, the farther they propagate. Same thing happens in the earth. The fault slips and it generates waves, but it generates two kinds of waves\u201d — a\u00a0\u201cP\u201d wave and an \u201cS\u201d wave. The \u201cS\u201d wave travels slower, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you may feel the first \u2018P\u2019 wave, which is a pop or a bang, and then you may feel a kind of rolling motion that\u2019s associated with the \u2018S\u2019 wave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This kind of information will ultimately land in the SMU researchers’\u00a0North Texas Earthquake Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Professor Heather DeShon is the team\u2019s lead scientist. She says one of the big questions is whether there is a relationship between earthquakes and wells, where water is injected back into the earth from nearby oil and gas drilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are interested in understanding if the fluid injection points are specifically related to the Azle sequence or the Mineral Wells sequence,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it\u2019s important to remember that we do not understand if and how injecting fluid into crust reactivates faults.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not sure if fluid injection could reactivate faults or if it\u2019s even relevant to the North Texas earthquakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of stations we have deployed in Azle, and the diversity of instrumentation we\u2019ve already deployed is really going to provide us an unprecedented opportunity to understand these processes,\u201d DeShon says. \u201cBut I\u2019ll stress today, we are still in the data collection point of our study. We do not have results and conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthquakes are top of mind in and around Azle, considered the epicenter of the recent earthquake swarm. Many residents near Azle blame natural gas well drilling — and the use of disposal wells to store wastewater from the drilling. There\u2019s been a gas drilling boom in the Barnett Shale, a massive geological formation that covers about 20 North Texas counties.<\/p>\n

For Michael Loggains, who lives near the Trinity River north of Azle, the minor earthquakes aren\u2019t as worrisome as the poor water quality. He used to work purifying wastewater from injection wells.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the water purification companies went out of business, because the big oil companies quit hiring people like our company to clean the water up to where it could be put back into lakes, ponds and streams,” he said.<\/p>\n

He added: “You know, when we was kids, you could get a water hose and drink out of it, and it was fine. Now you can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loggains hopes by the time the study is finished, scientists will have better answers about why quakes keep shaking North Texas.<\/p>\n

Read More: How Oil and Gas Disposal Wells Can Cause Earthquakes<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From KERA News: Researchers from Southern Methodist University say folks shouldn’t\u00a0rush to conclusions about what’s been causing the swarm of more than 30 earthquakes northwest of Fort Worth since November. Scientists have installed a temporary seismic network in and around the earthquake swarm to help gain a better understanding of the quakes. On Friday, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[104,50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34399,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34397\/revisions\/34399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}