Fracking and Earthquakes

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meow
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#1068051 18-Jun-2014 00:07

Fred99:

"My" information is from USGS:

USGS statistically analyzed the recent earthquake rate changes and found that they do not seem to be due to
typical, random fluctuations in natural seismicity rates. Significant changes in both the background rate of
events and earthquake triggers needed to have occurred in order to explain the increases in seismicity, which is
not typically observed when modeling natural earthquakes.

The analysis suggests that a likely contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes is triggering by wastewater
injected into deep geologic formations.

I politely suggest that you need to learn not to shoot the messenger, and when discussing any science topic, try to keep an open mind.

It could be said for some of the smaller 'quakes' (if you could even call them that) as yes, you can cause a very small quake quite easily as I've showed you above in the west coast graphs. Again, I still think it is people overreacting and suggest it is also related to normal seismic activity.

I bet if Geonet didn't have so much filtering on the West Coast you'll actually see the same effect going on.

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#1068085 18-Jun-2014 06:47

There's little doubt that, in some formations, Deep Wastewater Injection - associated with Hydraulic Fracturing - increases the chances of a local 'earthquake'.
The question is, what does that mean?
Is it a good thing? Maybe by releasing swarms of shallow 4.0 quakes now, they're bumping that shallow 7.0 quake 500 years into the future..

Maybe the government should invite Halliburton or ExxonMobil to frack right through from White Island to Lower Hutt...
In the best scenario they'll create thousands of small shallow earthquakes, in the worst they'll set off an 8.0 one, and the seat of Government will shift back to Auckland - but at least there'll be someone to sue.

Seriously though - There are 2 things we can be sure of.

Fracking (at least here in North America) is not going to stop - or even slow down.
The peak oil thing was a looming unspoken nightmare for those economies addicted to cheap energy (that's almost all of us)
Now that scenario's been pushed out beyond our lifetime, and everyone can relax. Fracking has had a good part in that.
The geopolitical effects of fracking in places like China will be huge. The politics of energy supply that've shaped the world for the past century are in for a shake up.

The other thing we can be sure of is that NZ will experience a BIG earthquake, or a volcanic eruption, sooner or later.
Everyone hopes that's also out beyond our lifetimes, but the fact is, the Christchurch earthquake - terrible as it was - could be trumped by a much bigger, more violent, deadlier one at any time. That's our own looming, unspoken nightmare.

We can only hope that all the research going on around the world, including those studies in Oklahoma and California will be able to help us predict a time and place, save our ( or our grandchildren's ) lives.

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#1068095 18-Jun-2014 07:41

I keep an open mind. Anything is possible. But some things you can argue for a decade and have no answer unless you spend millions of dollars looking into it. Even then ...

Fred99

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#1068121 18-Jun-2014 08:50

michaelmurfy:
Fred99:

"My" information is from USGS:

USGS statistically analyzed the recent earthquake rate changes and found that they do not seem to be due to
typical, random fluctuations in natural seismicity rates. Significant changes in both the background rate of
events and earthquake triggers needed to have occurred in order to explain the increases in seismicity, which is
not typically observed when modeling natural earthquakes.

The analysis suggests that a likely contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes is triggering by wastewater
injected into deep geologic formations.

I politely suggest that you need to learn not to shoot the messenger, and when discussing any science topic, try to keep an open mind.

It could be said for some of the smaller 'quakes' (if you could even call them that) as yes, you can cause a very small quake quite easily as I've showed you above in the west coast graphs. Again, I still think it is people overreacting and suggest it is also related to normal seismic activity.

I bet if Geonet didn't have so much filtering on the West Coast you'll actually see the same effect going on.

You seem to not trust the information I've passed on from the USGS.
As for the Denniston Seismograph, prior to a revamp of the Geonet site, seismographs subject to interference used to display with a description of particular local activity causing interference. The "blips" on the chart are very small - the scale 700:1 is relatively sensitive. I've asked Geonet if they can revert to individual descriptions of what causes those anomalies on some charts. Hopefully they will.

Mining activities do occasionally cause "significant" (able to be felt) magnitude earthquakes. USGS identifies these on their maps using a diamond shaped icon, to differentiate them. The occasional large mine explosion might be recorded in the M2.0 - 2.5 range.

These quakes in Oklahoma are much larger - your reference to mining activity in Denniston is a red herring.

Of course they're "related to" normal seismic activity. However it's not known what the cause is.
USGS are suggesting that fracking may have caused a M5.0 "foreshock" and that may have induced a M5.7 quake in Oklahoma in 2011. Quakes of that magnitude can be damaging - as that one was.

It could be that quakes "induced" by fracking would have happened anyway, but possibly not.
It could be that the swarm in Oklahoma is partly induced, but masking some larger unknown factor.

If there's a large damaging quake in Oklahoma in the near future, I'd expect some serious opposition to fracking - regardless of any facts.

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#1068125 18-Jun-2014 08:57

I am not sure what the aim of this thread is, if it is to raise opposition to Fracking I doubt it will be successful. Whilst the World has a huge, largely un-abating dependency on by products of the petrochemical industry, with its diminishing reserves the industry needs and will use methods
of greater risk in order to retrieve the resource and supply the need.

I feel few are prepared to do without the myriad of products that have links to oil, therefore the general populace will be OK with the methods used.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#1068198 18-Jun-2014 10:06

USGS statistically analyzed the recent earthquake rate changes and found that they do not seem to be due to typical, random fluctuations in natural seismicity rates. Significant changes in both the background rate of events and earthquake triggers needed to have occurred in order to explain the increases in seismicity, which is not typically observed when modeling natural earthquakes. The analysis suggests that a likely contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes is triggering by wastewater injected into deep geologic formations.

I assume you are quoting from the report. If so, it's kind of interesting. In a U.S context this means anyone affected by this series of seismic events (ie; damage to irrigation etc) has some of a path to sue fracking companies for the damage. I assume the same would apply to any damage to potable water supplies caused by these series of events. Yeah the frackers can hire their own experts and the like but eventually as the evidence mounts up (over a long period of time probably) the case just becomes unsupportable just like the smoking thing.

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#1068261 18-Jun-2014 10:48

I've recently wondered whether 'fracking causing earthquakes' might even potentially be a good thing. If there is a faultline with pressure building up, surely a series of small movements caused by a bit of man-made lubrication is better than the fault letting to in one big hit.

Note my geological knowledge is just about zero.

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MikeB4

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#1068645 18-Jun-2014 16:26

I feel Fracking is something that should not be done in NZ. There is a small risk of seismic events being triggered by the process. I have more concern about the chemicals and fluids used in the process.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#1068653 18-Jun-2014 16:45

KiwiNZ: I feel Fracking is something that should not be done in NZ. There is a small risk of seismic events being triggered by the process. I have more concern about the chemicals and fluids used in the process.

That's a more than fair comment, and not something I had considered.

I've just had a quick look through an interim report here (on the right) http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/all-publications/evaluating-the-environmental-impacts-of-fracking-in-new-zealand-an-interim-report. Appendix 2 has a list of chemicals used in the fracking fluid, which is 97% water.

The report also states that the fracking fluid of choice up to 2006 was diesel. DIESEL? Which bright spark decided that pumping diesel into the ground near our drinking water was a good idea? THAT definately tells me the companies involved cannot be relied upon to self-regulate. Sheesh.

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Fred99

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#1068771 18-Jun-2014 18:41

KiwiNZ: I am not sure what the aim of this thread is, if it is to raise opposition to Fracking I doubt it will be successful. Whilst the World has a huge, largely un-abating dependency on by products of the petrochemical industry, with its diminishing reserves the industry needs and will use methods
of greater risk in order to retrieve the resource and supply the need.

I feel few are prepared to do without the myriad of products that have links to oil, therefore the general populace will be OK with the methods used.

I don't have any particular "aim" here, except that in my opinion, it was worth posting as I've been told many times by people with vested politcal/economic interests, that "fracking can't cause earthquakes" or can only cause micro earthquakes that can't do any damage. That this now could appear to be a null hypothesis is significant IMO.

To those suggesting that "inducing EQ" may be a good thing - to avoid a larger event at at a later time, then there are two sides to this. On one side, inducing multiple smaller events to gradually "unlock" faults could theoretically be an advantage. Of course you'd want to know exactly what you were doing - which we couldn't.
On the other side however, as an example the Chch quake sequence originated from unknown "blind" faults, of which there will be very many in NZ. (Of course I'm not suggesting frackling had anything to do with that) "Return period" of this fault structure is in the order of tens of thousands of years. "Induciing" significant quakes in (possibly unknown) faults, with EQ return periods and time scale well in excess of having any relevance to human civilisation would be a very dumb thing to do.

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#1068773 18-Jun-2014 18:45

We have the technology now to better monitor our environment. Small low cost seismic sensors are easily placed and monitored....... we're entering the Big Data age where we'll be able to define our own outcomes from a wide range of sensors that are either purposely located in our environment or simply allow serendipitous use as they pass thru user defined windows.

This will mean we'll get a wide range of disparate interpretations, which will lead to new awareness and lots of conspiracy. .....

It wasnt that long ago the NZ seismic sensing network was prety much limited to few key locations, primarly because of cost. Remember when we didnt have a rain radar network.....

I guess I'm saying its increasingly easy to use (increasingly) readily available data to come to conclusions we wouldn't of not so long ago. And some of them will be valid.

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#1068776 18-Jun-2014 18:53

I would just like to observe, in passing, that correlation does not mean causality.

More than what you have presented is needed to draw any conclusions about causation.

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#1068809 18-Jun-2014 19:39

JimmyH: I would just like to observe, in passing, that correlation does not mean causality.

More than what you have presented is needed to draw any conclusions about causation.

Very glib.
USGS is suggesting possible causation. But if you know better, please inform us.

MikeB4

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#1068811 18-Jun-2014 19:47

I am not sure if the depths this is done at, I believe the range is 1,000 to 10,000 meters will be deep enough to trigger a large seismic event. The depths are enough though to put pollutants into the ground water and food chain.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Fred99

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#1068829 18-Jun-2014 20:04

KiwiNZ: I am not sure if the depths this is done at, I believe the range is 1,000 to 10,000 meters will be deep enough to trigger a large seismic event. The depths are enough though to put pollutants into the ground water and food chain.

The Oklahoma quakes are typically ~ 5 km depth hypocentre.
AFAIK fluid injection is < 3,000m.

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