{"id":8892,"date":"2012-04-18T17:27:27","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T22:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=8892"},"modified":"2012-04-18T17:27:27","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T22:27:27","slug":"scientists-present-report-linking-oil-and-gas-industry-to-earthquakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/18\/scientists-present-report-linking-oil-and-gas-industry-to-earthquakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Present Report Linking Oil and Gas Industry to Earthquakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8911\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"An injection well in Northern California, one of the most seismologically active regions in the country.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/injection-well.png\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-8911\" title=\"injection well\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/injection-well-620x414.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/injection-well-620x414.png 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/injection-well-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/04\/injection-well.png 638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy of KQED Radio via Flickr Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">An injection well in Northern California, one of the most seismologically active regions in the country.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seismosoc.org\/meetings\/2012\/\">meeting<\/a> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seismosoc.org\/\">Seismological Society of America<\/a>\u00a0today, scientists for the U.S. Geological Survey presented their much-anticipated findings linking the oil and gas industry with an increase in earthquakes in parts of the United States. (You can find NPR&#8217;s report on the findings <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/04\/12\/150460029\/scientists-link-rise-in-quakes-to-waste-water-wells\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.seismosoc.org\/FMPro?-db=Abstract_Submission_12&amp;-sortfield=PresDay&amp;-sortorder=ascending&amp;-sortfield=Special+Session+Name+Calc&amp;-sortorder=ascending&amp;-sortfield=PresTimeSort&amp;-sortorder=ascending&amp;-op=gt&amp;PresStatus=0&amp;-lop=and&amp;-token.1=ShowSession&amp;-token.2=ShowHeading&amp;-recid=224&amp;-format=%2Fmeetings%2F2012%2Fabstracts%2Fsessionabstractdetail.html&amp;-lay=MtgList&amp;-find\">abstract<\/a>\u00a0released this week, which is still the only publicly available part of the study, says that &#8220;the acceleration in activity that began in 2009 appears to involve a combination of source regions of oil and gas production&#8230; to deep waste water injection wells.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The report indicates that <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/tag\/injection-well\/\">disposal wells<\/a>,\u00a0where liquid by-products from oil and gas excavation are stored, are linked to an uptick in earthquakes in states like Arkansas and Oklahoma. But <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/earthquake\/\">what about here in Texas?<\/a><!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/03\/30\/how-a-new-study-links-earthquakes-to-drilling-injection-wells\/\">How a New Study Links Earthquakes to Drilling Injection Wells<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/08\/how-fracking-drilling-and-earthquakes-are-linked\/\">How Fracking, Drilling and Earthquakes Are Linked<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/02\/what-we-know-fracking-activity-and-the-ohio-earthquake\/\">What We Know About Fracking Activity and the Ohio Earthquake<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/02\/Cliff-Frohlich-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/earthquake\/\">Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/Class1Wells-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/injection-well\/\">How Do Disposal Wells\u00a0Work?<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Hydraulic-FrackingBarnettShaleDrilling-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/hydraulic-fracturing-2\/\">How Does Hydraulic Fracturing (\u201cFracking\u201d) Work?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Here in the Lone Star State, the connection between seismic activity and disposal wells is probably just as strong, but the state has not seen the same recent increase in earthquakes, says <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/earthquake\/\">Cliff Frohlich<\/a>, Associate Director of UT\u2019s Institute for Geophysics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve been producing enormous volumes of oil and gas in Texas since the 1920s, and so it\u2019s very possible that a lot of the earthquakes that I know about and do research on in Texas are related to oil and gas, but we certainly haven\u2019t seen much of a change in the state as a whole. But that\u2019s just because we do so much of it,&#8221; Frolich told StateImpact Texas.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Frolich, who we interviewed for <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/08\/how-fracking-drilling-and-earthquakes-are-linked\/\">a story<\/a> earlier this year about <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/earthquake\/\">links between earthquakes and disposal wells<\/a>, has been focusing his attention on how some earthquakes may be caused not by putting liquids into the ground, but by removing fossil fuels out of the ground.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you take enough stuff out of the ground, it&#8217;s going to change the stress field. I mean there&#8217;s earthquakes related to mining. You remove material underground, and things collapse, and faults slip and so on &#8212; the same is true for oil and gas,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>But Frohlich urges people not to read too much into the recent findings. Noting that natural gas production usually involves many different steps, Frohlich says the &#8220;scale&#8221; of the earthquakes produced by disposal wells are &#8220;usually pretty small.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Industry is aware that there are thousands of producing fields and tens of thousands of injection wells and you have a handful of earthquakes and their attitude is, &#8216;We&#8217;ve been doing this for years, and so whats the problem?'&#8221; said Frohlich.\u00a0&#8220;The public hears &#8216;earthquakes&#8217; and they&#8217;re afraid they&#8217;re going to have a Haiti or a japan\u00a0 in Dallas. Which isn&#8217;t going to happen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Geological Survey says the full research presented today will be published this June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a meeting of the Seismological Society of America\u00a0today, scientists for the U.S. Geological Survey presented their much-anticipated findings linking the oil and gas industry with an increase in earthquakes in parts of the United States. (You can find NPR&#8217;s report on the findings here.) The\u00a0abstract\u00a0released this week, which is still the only publicly available [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[15,104,21],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8892"}],"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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}