{"id":5584,"date":"2012-02-08T10:29:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T16:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2012-08-07T13:31:57","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T18:31:57","slug":"how-fracking-drilling-and-earthquakes-are-linked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/08\/how-fracking-drilling-and-earthquakes-are-linked\/","title":{"rendered":"How Fracking, Drilling and Earthquakes Are Linked"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo courtesy of Dr. Frohlich<\/p>

Dr. Cliff Frohlich of the University of Texas at Austin is researching the links between fracking and earthquakes.<\/p><\/div>\n

StateImpact Texas intern\u00a0Yana Skorobogatov\u00a0researched and reported this article.<\/h5>\n

Enduring an earthquake is one of the least desirable ways to spend one\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve, but that’s exactly what happened for many residents of Youngstown, Ohio. On December 31, 2011, a record-breaking 4.0 magnitude quake hit the midwestern town and left many residents understandably shaken up. It was the eleventh quake to disrupt the relatively sesimologically sound state that year, and partygoers weren\u2019t the only ones affected.<\/p>\n

The Ohio quakes were linked by officials and seismologists to disposal Injection wells <\/a>used for storing fluid from hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” These wells go deep underground and can hold waste fluids from hundreds of fracking wells.<\/p>\n

Could Texas, with it\u2019s 216,000 active injection wells<\/a>, be next?\u00a0South Texas\u00a0experienced a magnitude 4.8 earthquake<\/a>\u00a0in October 2011 near the\u00a0Eagle Ford Shale Play<\/a>, which is home to many disposal wells. There have been other\u00a0earthquakes linked to injection wells<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Barnett Shale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We recently sat down with Dr. Cliff Frohlich<\/a>, Associate Director of and Senior Research Scientist at the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin, to learn more about the science behind artificially-induced earthquakes<\/a> and figure out if Texas, too, is at risk.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>Can you give us a brief summary of the scientific community\u2019s views about the possible connection between disposal wells and earthquakes?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>In the scientific community, it was pretty much established in the 1960s that injecting fluids into the ground sometimes causes earthquakes. Prior to that, I don\u2019t think people thought about it much. They had discovered that sometimes filling lakes will cause earthquakes. That was established in the 1930s when they built Lake Meade for the Hoover Dam. But in the 1960s there was a series of earthquakes in Denver that pretty much established this thought about fluid injection.<\/p>\n

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