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Sort of like the straw breaking the camel's back... I have been wondering why oil companies have not been making the smaller-quake argument -- the link between

Sort of like the straw breaking the camel's back... I have been wondering why oil companies have not been making the smaller-quake argument -- the link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes has been clear for some time. I think 1,000 4.0 earthquakes have the same energy as a single 8.0 earthquake. The thousand 4.0's would be much more survivable. Even better, ten thousand 3.0's or a hundred thousand 2.0's spread out over decades... I am wondering if fracking in California will slow down now that a finger can be pointed at a corporation after a quake, instead of being shrugged off as an "act of god." The earthquake would occur eventually & naturally, of course, but what if oil & gas exploitation triggered it?

rgbrenner 11y ago
Oklahoma has an earthquake catalog for each year: http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/catalogs.php http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/catalogs.php I picked a random year (pre-fracking): 1989. There were 62 quakes with magnitudes between 1.7 and 3.1. Now lets pick a year with fracking: 2014. There were 5417 quakes with magnitudes between ~1 and 4.4. (Edit: for comparison purposes: 4923 were at 1.7 or above.) 13 out of 20 of the largest earthquakes since 1897 have been in the past 5 years. http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/information.php#FAQ" http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/information.ph... So no oil company is going to make that argument.. because there's no evidence it reduces the likelihood of larger quakes.. and people would start asking questions about why they're causing thousands of quakes each year (not to mention the liability).
igivanov 11y ago
1 mag 8 = 1,000,000 of mag 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Richter_magnitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Richte... On top of that major quakes happen deep below, not where humans do their thing.

rgbrenner 11y ago

Oklahoma has an earthquake catalog for each year: http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/catalogs.php http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/catalogs.php I picked a random year (pre-fracking): 1989. There were 62 quakes with magnitudes between 1.7 and 3.1. Now lets pick a year with fracking: 2014. There were 5417 quakes with magnitudes between ~1 and 4.4. (Edit: for comparison purposes: 4923 were at 1.7 or above.) 13 out of 20 of the largest earthquakes since 1897 have been in the past 5 years. http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/information.php#FAQ" http://www.okgeosurvey1.gov/pages/earthquakes/information.ph... So no oil company is going to make that argument.. because there's no evidence it reduces the likelihood of larger quakes.. and people would start asking questions about why they're causing thousands of quakes each year (not to mention the liability).

igivanov 11y ago

1 mag 8 = 1,000,000 of mag 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Richter_magnitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Richte... On top of that major quakes happen deep below, not where humans do their thing.