A fracking operation in Forth Worth, Texas. Some residents worry that recent earthquakes in the area may have been caused by the injecting of fracking waste.
Photograph by Les Stone, Corbis
Published January 7, 2015
Updated Thursday 12:30 p.m. ET.
A rare series of earthquakes in northern Texas has residents asking if oil and gas activities are responsible for the shaking, which has left people rattled but did not cause significant damage or injuries.
A series of nine earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 1.6 to 3.6 shook the Dallas region over a period of less than 24 hours late Tuesday and early Wednesday. The shaking was felt in Dallas, Irving, and surrounding towns. Residents of those areas have flooded Twitter with accusations that the quakes were caused by oil and gas activity.
Scientists say they won't know the cause of the temblors for perhaps a year, but that it's possible industrial activities could have played a role. A scientific study published this week concluded that several small earthquakes near Youngstown, Ohio, in March were caused by fracking activities near a fault.
In Texas, "it's premature to speculate on the causes of the earthquakes," says Brian Stump, a seismologist and professor at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, who is studying the recent temblors.
Earthquakes in the area had been virtually unknown until relatively recently. "If we go back prior to October of 2008, the historical record indicates there might have been one earthquake in 1950, but that was about it," says Stump.
Since then, there have been more than a hundred seismic events in the area, known as the Fort Worth Basin.
OMG #DallasEarthquake, second one this year #fracking
— Phillip Turner (@phillipmturner) January 6, 2015
Stump and other scientists have published research finding "a plausible link" between some recent earthquakes and waste injection wells in the area. The wells are created by shooting polluted water from fracking or other industrial activities deep into the earth, often at high pressure, to dispose of the waste. (Learn about a possible link between a rise in earthquakes in Oklahoma and injection wells.)
But the seismologist notes that "there are those that disagree" with his findings.
Stump is part of a team that's deploying instruments in the area to better measure the specific characteristics of the earth and to map the area's fault lines. Scientists will then analyze the data over the coming months.
Tuesday's and Wednesday's quakes are the fourth significant sequence of seismological events since 2008. Other recent quakes have struck near the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and in the northern part of the basin.
Link to Injection Wells?
A growing body of research suggests that wastewater injections may lubricate faults and trigger earthquakes, although some industry representatives have downplayed the possibility of a link. (Learn more about fracking and quakes.)
The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the oil and gas industry in the state, recently ordered companies to check local seismic records before they open a new waste disposal well. The ruling came after residents of the town of Azle, outside Fort Worth, complained that recent earthquakes there may have been spurred by new injection activities. Scientists are currently studying the question.
Stump says that it's difficult to link any one earthquake with an injection well. "But by studying a number of events, my hope is that we can come to an understanding of these processes," he says.
Elizabeth Cochran, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, California, says it often takes about a year of analysis to determine the cause of an earthquake.
"What we typically do is put out additional instrumentation, which allows us to get better location data, and then we can look at where the faults are in relation to any injection wells and determine how likely it is that a particular sequence is related to that or not," says Cochran, who has studied the link between injection wells and earthquakes in Oklahoma.
"There have been a number of studies that have pointed toward wastewater injection as a cause, not for every single seismic event but perhaps for a significant portion of those events," says Cochran, pointing to research from Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and elsewhere.
On top of a significant uptick in Oklahoma earthquakes in recent years, Cochran says she has seen an increase in the number of aftershocks. "That's a fundamental change in tectonic events," she says, "which tend to behave in a predictable way, so it has to be driven by something.
"It suggests that there could be some sort of forcing, which would potentially point to injection."
Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association, recently told National Geographic that it's too early to know if injection wells are responsible or if the rise in earthquakes in his state is part of a natural cycle.
"We are concerned about it because we live here, but we don't want to have a knee-jerk reaction and have a bunch of regulation put on us that is not effective in minimizing the risk of seismic activity," he said.
The Texas Bureau of Economic Geology did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, which studies geologic issues for the state, said on Wednesday that it did not have someone available to comment.
Based on evidence from other geographical regions, since fracking is one of the suspected causes, AT LEAST pause the fracking till you know whether it is the confirmed cause! What's the logic in waiting for one year of research to complete before pausing the fracking - if you confirm at that point it is the fracking, you've already done more damage!
I do not want to be fracked. Fossil fuels should be closer to extinction than they are. Sustainable energy doesn't seem to have the money or politics behind it. We,re sheep in the middle of the flock feeling safe for the moment.
Lubricating fault lines might actually be a GOOD thing. Stress along fault lines is not able to build to catastrophic levels before slipping occurs, thus decreasing the magnitude of earthquakes.
I remember when I was in elementary school or middle school watching a documentary on earthquakes and hearing that some people thought that one possible way to prevent a massive earthquake in California might be to deliberately set off a series of smaller earthquakes so as to lubricate the fault line and relieve the pressure within the fault line. If that does prove to be the case, then could it be that fracking might actually be a good thing if it prevents massive earthquakes from occurring?
Earthquakes or not, injecting chemical laden water at high pressure deep into the earth cannot possibly be a good thing.
Search for drill site images and earthquake sites and overlay them; takes 10min. (check Reno, TX and the stadium site among others) I'll just use my mineral rights check to repair the cracks in my brick...it all evens out.
I have seen some stories and comments how fracking and these earthquakes have no connection, until proven otherwise, yet this has all ready happened in Ohio, when fracking on a fault line, and pumping wastewater into their injection wells caused a number of small earthquakes there as well. It seems some in fracking industry want to make out like this is all natural events and no way related to their operations...
To me it seems irresponsible to try to make a case against it, but instead I think everyone who has resources, and tied to this industry, should be doing all they can to find out what is going on so they learn and not make the same mistakes again. It seems more like they are ducking their responsibilties and it has been reported that there were no damages, or death, but there has been a lot of minor foundation issues caused by these unprecedented mini-quakes, in neighborhoods where families will have to forego a lot to fix because virtually no one in Texas has earthquake riders on their homeowner's policy because in the last two known centuries, there have been no known earthquakes in the area.
So once the connection is made and proven in court... will the companies participating in the injection well practice near fault lines be required to reimburse the various insurance companies that received claims for damages resulting from the earthquakes?
If the business case still supports injection wells after those risks are taken into account, what is the problem? Should those same companies be morally obligated to provide a risk analysis of where quakes may occur as a result of their operations? How else would individual home owners learn about the issue and choose to move away from the areas that are affected? (probably from their insurance company or the news)
It seems to be proved that there is an evident correlation between injection of water and the triggering of micro-seisms in the surroundings of the injections wells. This is true not only for wells injecting water used in fracking processes in the oil & gas industry, but for any other injection of water --even fresh, not treated water. However, the magnitude of the seismic events is very low --for which they are called micro-seisms. Usually the earthquakes are not felt by people and do not cause any damage.
So, the problem with hydraulic fracturing is not the possibility of causing a severe earthquake, but the use of large volumes of water that could cause some shortages (or higher prices) in the region where fracking is occurring.
Well golly, if a few scientists think there might be a possible link then I guess every other scientist that may disagree or any layperson that may doubt the link MUST just be a shill for the oil industry. Anyone that doesn't see that this god awful fracking is going to lead to the destruction of Texas and everyone that lives there shortly to be followed by the rest of the country and then the world is just a climate change unbeliever! Haven't you all learned that the years of being able to have a different opinion or wanting to wait for conclusive proof before accepting anything that the man with the megaphone is saying st face value are long gone? Fracking is going to lead to massive earthquakes, famine, death, destruction, the sun turning cold and the oceans drying up (they use WATER to frack..what a waste..aren't there people in the world suffering from not having enough water? Can't we send the water there instead of using it for evil?). Being an avid NG reader since childhood now a man in my 40's I gotta say many of you commentators make me shake my head...Go troll CNN where you belong. Leave this site to those actually interested in Science, Nature, and the Ancient World..
This is very likely a contributor. In the north part of the Netherlands natural gas has been harvested for decades and minor tremors have happened during this time. In recent years the tremors have grown in numbers and magnitude with many houses and other buildings bearing the scars. Ongoing research definitely points to the extraction of gas.
Hello!
North Texas has only had earthquakes since the fracking began. (I've lived here over 60 years) Do you think there might be a connection? "Of course not!", says big money Oil. California always had quakes so we can't compare the 2 states. Texas has had serious droughts before and they never caused earthquakes. FYI: the water table does not affect the water pressure to your home, unless you have a well that is into an aquifer. While I greatly appreciate what fracking is doing to our fuel prices (& making OPEC suck wind right now), I don't think earhquakes and damage to structures is a good trade. At the very least, fracking should be done at a great distance from highly populated metropolitan areas, and not within our city limits.
There are so many bad effects from fracking and this is only one. Granted we do not know anything for sure on this one issue and the quakes are mild. For Californians like me these tiny quakes are nothing as we are used to this but I am sure that it is disconcerting to Texans and we are doing fracking in California too. But no one knows whether these will quakes will get worse. But we know for sure that other serious problems exist with fracking such as air and water pollution and it wastes water for those states that are experiencing droughts. When will people get a clue that we can't keep going on like this?
Forget the issue of global warming for a moment and ask yourself about all the other affects of pollution on our planet. Does anyone actually believe that oil, gas, and coal are actually "cheap" sources of energy when you factor in the damage to our planet, even without the global warming problem? How about the effects of squabbling over limited resources? Don't wars count as a serious consequence on world economies? Has enriching our enemies helped us? The price of our addiction is far higher than what we pay at the pump and what we pay in our energy bills.
Future generations will deem this one as being completely and utterly insane...
Example the new madrid quakes of 1811-1812 caused sandblows to erupt on the surface like geysers from thousands of feet down. This zone is still active as well as faults in oklahoma, and kansas. But the effects on older dangerous faults by these wells and fracking processes is not being taken into consideration in their desire to make the big bucks. A major earthquake in the central usa would cripple the whole nation and make katrina look like a hiccup!!! Minor re-iccuribg quakes can undermine foundations and create weak zones in the underlying strata we cant see until its too late. In short terms america was promised clean energy but its not clean its creating posions that are being injected into our water tables. If we have to dump our underground full of posions, radio actuve crap etc its not clean energy. If they must use sesmic areas why not do like iceland does and use the geothermal areas for power and heat? Yellowstone could be tapped to power half the western usa! And it would help to relieve pressures in the cauldera and keep it from erupting. These industries dont want to go clean because they couldnt make billions off of us if they did.
Do they think we are so stupid we dont realize the crap ghey put down there wells can come back up during earthquakes. Arkansas shut them down and our hundreds of quakes stopped and the leaking stopped. Oklahoma and kansas citizens are raising cane too for the hault of this process. These companies should be forced to use a different and safer process. It can be done they dont want to do it cause its all about hanging on to the big bucks. People need to crawl into the congress's butts and demand it stops!!!! Start writting your congress a email every day people!!!!
It's the huge amount of fracking being done in Texas that " industry representatives have downplayed" and have been so busy around the country denying that anything could be wrong with the process, plenty of purchased proof to back up the claims too. Smoking isn't bad for your health either.
how about the water table being a factor? since we have been in a drought for a decade now wouldn't the clay 're-coil' back as there is no moisture to weigh down the soil around the fault? i have been here for only 17 years but seen alot of building going on and the water pressure rose to my home from 80psi to over 100psi due to more pressure to feed new water lines to newer homes and businesses..
Texas have tremors several times a year, every year. I feel and sometime hear them where we live. Ive told my spouse in the mornings after I felt or heard them during the night. The Haiti earthquake was an especially loud and sporadically went on for an hour that morning.
Well... you can tell who is paying the Scientist.... we only have one planet stop screwing it up for greed.
@Derek Atkins I'm pretty sure that the small earthquakes in Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio have little to no effect on California's San Andreas fault. Indeed there is benefit or "good news" in California when there are smaller temblors, but it's very local in nature.
@Tarahe Rashan You forgot to blame President Obama, he is the Anti-Christ after all.
You are right, it is easier to blame the messenger than it is to understand the science.
@Tarahe Rashan there is no fault line in Irving.
P.S. Tell you mom you want a new name that doesn't sound like she was on crack when she gave it to you.
@Tarahe Rashan As a geologist, I blame all 3. But in reality, if there is an increase in seismic activity and it is in an area of recent fracking activity and/or high-pressure waste water injection activity, you have to take a look at a possible connection between the man-made activity and the seismic activity. From what I have heard, that is exactly what the USGS and the Texas and Oklahoma Geological departments are doing. Stay tuned.
@Tarahe Rashan Why does it always come down to politics? That is for later... What need to know now is, what caused us to enter this period of activity? It's not something that just happens. Everything effects everything, meaning something caused this. I can tell you right now, I work and live around Irving Texas where these earthquakes hit, and no one I know considers it a natural event, that was completely natural. From who I have spoke to, many right-wing, if you want to get poltical, just want to know what caused it. Not to try to make it a political game until after we get some feedback from our scientist and data.
@Trevor Carlson One has to ask that if earthquakes result, what else might be happening? That frack water contains 400+ chemicals, some of which we aren't even allowed to know about (the infamous "Cheney exemption" protects drillers from disclosing certain additives, for reasons that sure seem suspicious). If the pressure is causing tectonic slippage, are we confident that that wastewater will stay out of the water table?
Count me concerned.
@Peter Klomp Thanks Peter, but the good ole folks in Texas don't like Science very much.
@John Ulrich fracking is not what is resulting in the lower oil prices. So you are appreciating it for no good reason.
@John Ulrich With respect, we haven't been in this country long enough to make a statement like this; "North Texas has only had earthquakes since the fracking began". Geological processes have been in the making for millions of years, we couldn't begin to imagine that we know what may be going on down there at this point.
While I don't discount it as a possibility, people need to hold their opinions until we have a suitable reason to substantiate those opinions. A "link" to something doesn't make it the cause, a "link" supports the need for greater research. Jumping to conclusions because of possible correlations is a very bad idea.
@Mary Rogers It is all a matter of economics. People used whale oil to chase away the darkness until the supplies diminished and the cost became prohibitive. Only then did an alternative present itself.
Already in the developing world it is cheaper to build windmills or put in solar arrays than it is to build a coal fired power plant.
No one will ever build a new coal plant in the US because of the lower cost of natural gas and the specter of expensive regulations on emissions.
We used the cheapest and easiest way to generate electricity, the balance is shifting. Future generations will say we did the best we could with what we had.
@Mary Rogers I find it funny that everyone in the industrialized world is right now at this very moment enjoying the benefits of societies build on the use of oil, gas and coal.
I doubt seriously very many people in cold climates using oil, gas or coal think it is insane when they turn on their furnaces.
@Rebecca moore Geo-thermal energy from Yellowstone...a great idea! Too bad that the majority of people will find something wrong with it! The brainwashed masses believe that alternative energy sources will hurt the poor and the economy. Any new technology is going to cost more at first, but the price goes down. That is why it is good to make a slow transition. The problem is the longer we wait the more urgent the situation gets. If the consumer experiences a sharp jolt in prices it is in many ways their own fault. We could have easily started this in the 70's when it was warned that we were running out of easily accessible fossil fuels. And it has also been apparent that pollution is wrecking havoc on the earth, even if you dismiss the reality of global warming. Procrastination has hurt us BIG-TIME.
Yes the problem is that the energy industry cannot control clean, cheap and locally accessible energy. The big monopolies will crumble.
@Timothy Steele There are faults everywhere, Hills are formed by faults shifting, some creeks are made by faults shifting as well. They are not as big as the ones you are thinking of like the San Andreas in CA, that is also why the earthquakes are not as big as the ones in CA. I live in Lewisville and I didn't feel the quakes. I lived in LA for the 1994 earthquake and that one could be felt 100 miles away.
@Timothy Steele @John Ulrich Fracking is one of several causes of the low crude oil prices. Supply and demand, comes into play, America has increased supply and at the same time it has been lowering consumption.
Europe is falling back into recession their demand is less.
Speculators also have a hand in pricing. By the end of December 2015 oil will be back at $80 a barrel.
@Chris Wicklund @John Ulrich Chris, I admit I wasn't here when dinosaurs roamed the earth. So, while I agree that your general statement that "Geological processes have been in the making for millions of years" is correct, I am also able to state that there have been no earthquakes, in the quantity that we're experiencing now, for the last 60 years in N Texas. Reading historical articles about earthquakes in the US tells me that they're fairly rare in Texas. Now we have more than a few. I also don't like to jump to conclusions, but I'm pretty sick and tired of large corporations denying all responsibility for any number of problems heaped upon the population until somewhere, somebody "proves it". Look, the multiple earthquakes started not to long after we started pumping liquid into fissures in the earth. I don't need a degree in rocket science (or geology) to see there's a direct correlation. Seems like the majority of the talking heads telling us," Jumping to conclusions because of possible correlations is a very bad idea." are either the oil companies or politicians.
@Chris Wicklund @John Ulrich Really, you must work for the oil industry. Like the other guy said, I like the gas prices, but if I had to choose between cheap gas or to stave off an earth quake, I would pay more for gas.
Years ago I read about fracking before it ever became main stream, I knew then that we would cause earth quakes and now here they come.
This is a very bad thing to be doing to the earth and we pay for this cheap gas with blood.
Just wait and see.
@Chris Wicklund @John Ulrich Somehow Chris I get the feeling you do not believe in climate change, that tobacco use leads to cancer or that children should be immunized against diseases. In all these cases the deniers first deny any link and then when the evidence becomes overwhelming they switch their argument to "we need more time to study."
You are correct that people of European dissent have only been in Texas for a few hundred years. And records in the area were not kept for that entire time. However over the course of record keeping there was only one earthquake in 1950, but since 2008 and the use of fracking, there have been four series of quakes including a series of nine quakes in less than 24 hours.
Since these recent episodes do not cross your threshold of correlation and causation, what level of earthquake activity would make you say there is a link? And I know your answer, you have no line to cross, you will just keep denying and ignoring evidence to suit your view that is not based on facts.
By the way, the people in Oklahoma are facing the same increase in earthquakes and have concluded there is a link between fracking and earthquakes.
@Mary Rogers Not that I'm saying great care should not be taken in handling our planet, but there are a few issues with your argument.
#1 People are living longer than anytime in human history, due to the industrialization born from coal and oil.
#2 People have money to pay for medical bills simply because of "the industrialization born from coal and oil."
#3 We have the scientific/medical advances we have because of "the industrialization born from coal and oil."
#4 We ALL have greater quality of living because of "the industrialization born from coal and oil.
While I do not disagree that we must move away from fossil fuels, but only as we advance in ways to replace them. They are very cheap sources of energy considering the energy source before was humans. Slavery has decreased worldwide due to cheap energy, and the industrial advancements because of that "cheap energy", not due to human rights initiatives. Human rights only exist because cheap energy has allowed (most of us) us to advance past the need to use other human beings as that resource and exploit them.
Oil is not evil, it is a tool. Oil companies are not the devil, they are simply using the tool available to them that is by far currently the most efficient. Humans, by nature are animals, animals have evolved to exploit, and humans are no different. Any corporation (or person) will exploit whatever resources are available and engage in questionable ethics to protect or advance itself. Just reality
@Justin Smith @Mary Rogers I guess you completely missed my point. I never said it was insane to want a heated house. But I can't explain anything to an idiot. Go troll someone else...
@Chris Wicklund @Mary Rogers According to some groups slavery has not decreased, unfortunately. They charge that there are more slaves alive today than ever before: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/more-slaves-today-ever-before-4435373.
While fossil fuels have helped drive a lot of positive changes, it's also true that society could move beyond them given everything we've learned. Phasing in the next sources of energy wouldn't have to mean giving up the other advancements that have come.
@Mary Rogers @Justin Smith First rule of liberalism, if you can't defend your argument with logical thinking, call the opposition names.
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