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Monday, May 05, 2014

Geologists say injection wells can cause earthquakes 30 miles away; USGS to estimate national risk

Injection wells to dispose of hydraulic fracturing fluids can trigger earthquakes as far as 30 miles away, researchers said Friday at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Anchorage, Alaska, Becky Oskin report for LiveScience. Lead author Katie Keranen, a geophysicist at Cornell University, said that in the Oklahoma City area "a cluster of four high-volume wastewater injection wells triggered quakes up to 30 miles" away and have since "spread farther outward, as fluids migrate farther from the massive injection wells."

Since 2009, when the fracking boom came to Oklahoma, the state has been second in earthquakes, trailing only California. Keranen said, "These are some of the biggest wells in the state. The pressure is high enough from the injected fluids to trigger earthquakes."

Keranen's study was one of several presented that linked fracking to earthquake. Justin Rubinstein, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the agency, for the first time, "plans to estimate the national shaking risk from 'induced seismicity'," Oskin writes. He told  her, "We've never done this before. These earthquakes of larger magnitude really demonstrate that [induced earthquakes] are a significant hazard." (Read more)

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