Oil Drilling May Make Midwest More Vulnerable To Earthquakes
Damage from the 2011 Earthquake in Central Oklahoma Brian Sherrod, USGS New findings on what human activities are able to trigger earthquakes, and what kinds of quakes we may be setting off In the past few years, scientists have linked an oil-and-gas industry practice, called wastewater injection, to increased earthquakes in normally quiet places like Oklahoma and Texas. Now, a new study says wastewater injection could make American Midwest faults more vulnerable even to major seismic activity halfway around the world. The study linked three major earthquakes outside the U.S. to mid-size shakers near injection sites in Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado. Here's one example: The study found that the enormous earthquake that devastated eastern Japan in March 2011 triggered a swarm of quakes-the largest was magnitude 4.3-near Snyder, Texas. The study also found a distant trigger for the Prague, Oklahoma, quakes that we've covered before. Now, causes and effects are pretty important here,...