USGS Suggests Connection Between Seismic Activity and Fracking 145
First time accepted submitter samazon writes "According to a recently proposed abstract by the United States Geological Survey, hydraulic fracturing, or more specifically the disposal of fracking wastewater, may be directly correlated to the increase in seismic activity in the midwest. Results of the paper will be presented on April 18th, but the language of the abstract seems to imply that there is a connection. After years of controversy regarding hydrofracking including ground water contamination and disclosure of chemical solutions, the results of the study, if conclusive, could influence the cost of natural gas due to increased regulations on wastewater disposal." The actual language of the abstract leaves a fair amount of wiggle room: "While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production."
Oh Great. (Score:4, Insightful)
Another reason for some people to reinforce their belief that science is anti-business and that scientists should be dismissed, if not stopped.
Re:Oh Great. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh Great. (Score:5, Interesting)
I wasn't attempting to imply that anyone should be censored, much less good science. I build equipment for scientists in the life sciences industry - I fall in the "ignoramuses be damned, let the science proceed" camp.
In our current political divide in the US, it seems that some people are becoming more automatic in their dismissal of evidence if it contradicts their beliefs. There was a survey I read about (I'm too lazy to look it up) which said that amongst those people who did not agree with AGW, a large percentage said they were not interested in new facts. Reading that... it's hard not to despair a bit.
I know it won't be long before someone hoists this study up complaining about scientists wanting to take away jobs. And I die a little everything that kind of BS happens.
Sorry if I wasn't clear about that.
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There would be less skepticism and suspicion if science provided some balance against all the fear it is deliberately used to create. The vast majority of the trivially small tremors associated with fracking aren't a threat to anyone. If you pull millions of tons of fluid out of the Earth it will shift a bit. The continent isn't going to shatter and sink into the Atlantic.
Government funded scientists aren't encouraged to offer that view, however, because the people that paid for the science don't care to
Re:Oh Great. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry but that is just a big crock of shit. It isn't scientists fault that the right of the political spectrum is too stupid and blinkered to ask the right questions or adjust their views enough to accommodate reality.
A scientists job in this context is to present the facts they have gathered and the conclusions they have drawn in a politically neutral manner. Why do you think they all sound like Vulcans on CSPAN.
If the political right wants scientists to say that the breaking of a continent in two due to fracking is incredibly unlikely I'm certain (since that statement is bloody obviously true) that you can find a reputable geophysicist willing to say that. Most scientists are happy to provide their advice (free of charge), to public institutions. The reason the political right wont do that is because the next question they are going to be asked by the gentleman with the blue tie is "how much does this increase the chances of a 7.0+ earthquake near a population centre".
Why didn't the right invite a scientists to testify about the Nebraska pipeline? It is within their power to request it, so why not? The media doesn't give a crap what scientists say so if the political right wants to champion a science led perspective on policy they're are going to have to use their media pull to promote it.
The reason, in this context, that the political right has not provided the soap box scientists need to counter these claims is because they know that once it is all tied down the moral implications of this kind of work is that either certain extraction techniques should be prohibited or (and here is where I fall on the issue) they need to be taxed higher to offset the additional costs incurred in terms of insurance, first responder preparations, etc. The political right, instead of doing what they are supposed to do (countering the lefts heavy handed statist approach with a different political solution to the problem by using the market) are pretending the problem doesn't exist,
Re:Oh Great. (Score:5, Insightful)
The political right, instead of doing what they are supposed to do (countering the lefts heavy handed statist approach with a different political solution to the problem by using the market) are pretending the problem doesn't exist,
Without regulation and oversight, the free market will externalize as much of its costs as possible.
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What the frack do you mean by "externalize"?
Short-term private profits over long-term communal benefits sounds more likely to be the unsustainable reality.
Corporations don't give a damn about the land and pollution. The people are hardly truly "external", so it's a badly coined word.
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The people are hardly truly "external", so it's a badly coined word
Perhaps, but that's the technical term and everyone agrees on its usage.
Got a problem with the word? Take it up with Webster, or change your handle to HumptyDumpty [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Oh Great. (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, I'm on the political left. There is however a distinction between someone on the right who, due to different values to me, wants to try to fix only some of the problem with as little intervention as possible, and someone on the right who pretends nature is not as it is. You and I tolerate a little intervention by the state to prevent excessive externalisation, a person on the right tolerates a little externalisation to prevent intervention by the state. We have different values and that is what politics is about.
The issue I have with the anti-science perspective of the right is that they are pretending the universe doesn't work the way it does because they want their fantasy land ideas to be true. I have no problem attacking the political right over this because the attitude is now so pervasive it is representative, but at the same time I'm not going to suggest that being on the right of the political spectrum automatically invalidates someone's opinion.
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You mean this scientific study that has no conclusions either way?
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You seem to bei neither. Because you willfully ignore that any attempt to prove that climate scientists committed fraud resulted into nothing. Not a single instance of fraud! Despite lots of accusations and investigations, still no evidence of fraud. Instead every project so far to independently gather the data, analyze them and then prove the climate theories wrong (as a scientist would do it), resulted in the same predictions the climate scientists already made.
But instead of being a scientist and accepti
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No, they aren't. But that's not the problem. Every single scientist has its own viewpoint. Most of them like to see their viewpoint spread. There are animosities, and there are personal feuds. There are people writing mails while being angry or in a generally bad mood. There is the pressure to get tenure and research grants. There is the attraction of conference travel and wellpaid positions in the industry. And there is just human error. Experiments and calculations can be faulty, are error prone and scien
Re:Oh Great. (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't worry. Some Libertarian think tank will surely release a study that proves that fracking is perfectly safe. That's the great thing about science: no matter what you believe, you can hire some think tank that will confirm and reinforce your biases. Some people may call that pseudo-science or shilling, but they lack the proper perspective to see that there's a dollar to be made.
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Re:Oh Great. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say the great thing about science is that the repeatability of an experiment is the best fact-checker in the world.
In your scenario, one of three things would happen:
1) The experiment is repeated. Turns out that maybe fracking isn't all that harmful. It's not 100% sure but it adds more weight to the argument that fracking is safe.
2) The experiment is repeated. The results come out quite differently via multiple independent re-tests. Dismissed as a load of bullshit.
3) No experiment protocols are published. Dismissed as a load of bullshit due to inability to verify the experiment.
Re:Oh Great. (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple experiment to conduct. Select ten, twenty or more sites that would be suitable for fracking. Set up seismographic equipment to locate the origin of earthquakes in all cases. Choose half the sites for fracking. Leave the other half as a control. Now you can gather results. This will give you a 2x2 table of fracking/no-fracking vs. earthquakes/no earthquakes. It could be extended to amount of fracking vs. strength of earthquake.
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If the report had come to the opposite conclusion, the other side would claim the scientists are corporate shills. You just can't win.
Re:Oh Great. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Until there is 100% conclusive evidence that can be reproduced"
We should stop burning oil just in case carbon emissions really are causing global warming
"Until there is 100% conclusive evidence that can be reproduced"
That there was a big bang we should switch of the LHC
"Until there is 100% conclusive evidence that can be reproduced"
That the earth is round we should stop sailing ships towards the horizon
"Until there is 100% conclusive evidence that can be reproduced"
That humans can survive in space we should stay here on this rock
Humans have believed a great many things that have turned out to be complete bunk. In the early days of the railways people were convinced that people would suffocate above 20 mph. Cars were deemed so dangerous that a man with a flag had to walk in front of them, because there was no " 100% conclusive evidence" that their suggestions could be proved on way or another
You on the other hand have provided /. with "100% conclusive evidence" that you're not nearly as clever as you'd like to think you are
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I'm not the poster you are replying to, and I haven't even read his post (it is below the threshold currently), but I'd just like to point out that everyone on /. thinks they are smarter than the person they are acting like dicks to. So instead of saying fuck you, I'll say
Nothing without risk (Score:1)
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Can it prevent large earthquakes? (Score:3)
That would obviously be quite a breakthrough if it could be made repeatable.
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Re:Can it prevent large earthquakes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be silly. Fracture the crust? Are you insane? We can't drill that deep. The Crust is 50 MILES thick. We've NEVER directly sampled the mantle because it's not possible to drill that deep with current technology. We can't even drill 1/4 of the crust thickness. Maximum drilling depth is on the order of 5 miles or 1/10 the approximate crust thickness.
These are minor quakes, they are settlement and movement of sediment layers, not fault shifts. They happen anytime you drill at depth and push or pull material from the drill hole. They aren't anything to worry about, they've been happening for as long as we've been drilling (more than 100 years). I swear you east coasters feel a little shake and freak out.
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minor correction the deepest hole drilled is ~7 miles(40,000+ feet)
Re:Can it prevent large earthquakes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, scientists have been able to drill down to the mantle or at least magma chambers where the crust is thinnest.
http://www.livescience.com/6959-hole-drilled-bottom-earth-crust-breakthrough-mantle-looms.html [livescience.com]
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I'm sure I saw something on TV with land drilling for magma chambers. They said that they could tell when the drill bit went through the crust because the drill would spin faster. When retracted, the drill would be covered in semi-solid rock.
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Hydraulic fracturing has an environmental impact, guess what, all energy extraction has an environmental impact.
My 95% efficent gas furnace doesn't run on fairy sweat, and neither does anyone else's.
It's not very smart, nor fair, from an economic, environmental, or geo-political perspective, to use energy but demand it come from somewhere else.
The vast overwhelming majority of horizontal fracture operation have been completely uneventful. Now yes, problems have occurred, but a problem with a on
Re:Can it prevent large earthquakes? (Score:5, Informative)
No, for a number of reasons. Even if smaller quakes simply "relieved stress," preventing larger quakes, the Richter scale is logarithmic so it'd take many small quakes to prevent a large one. USGS agrees: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/megaqk_facts_fantasy.php [usgs.gov]
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Thanks for the link. I take the point about the amount of energy which would need to be dissipated but wouldn't it still be better to have 32,000 magnitude 3 quakes instead of one magnitude 6 quake?
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Well, how often does a magnitude 6 quake happen? Let's just say for the sake of argument that it's once a year. That's nearly 100 mini-quakes a day. What if it happens more often?
The ideal, I suppose, would be to do it at a rate where our engineering can withstand it. If the building codes can handle mag 5s with little problem, then fire those off periodically to prevent worse ones.
The ancient Greeks suspected that (Score:5, Funny)
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LOL!
Mod current, (Score:5, Funny), as underrated!
Translation? (Score:1, Insightful)
Increase our budget so that we may study this more.
Re:Translation? (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to what - the problem is solved, so let's decrease funding? The science is settled, so let's not study this anymore?
I swear, some people sound like they think everything should be funded via unicorn farts and rainbows. Yes, research costs money. Pay up, or end up in the dark ages. Of course, if that does happen, you'll find someone or something else to blame but your own shortsighted smugness that automatically equates every human endeavor with your own base motivation: more money.
Insightful my ass.
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Of course, being made public can mean it costs $35 a pop to look at it; thus costing twice.
And the US political agencies are about as unbiased as English politics in the time of Walpole.
But the method is at least the least worst.
The way to look at it is that public money is just a base that the rest of the country works on.
Private funds are really what costs people anything.
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And this is exactly why scientists study things - because a gut feeling is not the same as data, no matter how much you'd like to believe that.
Fortunately for us, there are people willing to take your ridicule and ask obvious questions, with the idea that the answer might not be nearly as obvious as anyone thought.
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You reckon enough has been studied, but in terms of outcomes there's a big difference between reservoir depletion causing earthquakes, and fracking causing earthquakes. One is a complete cessation of extraction,
Strong Correlation... (Score:4, Insightful)
... but can't yet prove causation. Still, the correlation is significant enough to justify significant caution in the continued use of fracking, and to merit further study on causation. As others have noted, this has the potential to be useful geoengineering, but like many discoveries, it has the potential to be very dangerous. A healthy dose of caution is warranted.
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Proving causation here would cost billions of dollars. To do a controlled experiment, you first need to put a freeze on all new drilling. Then randomly decide where you're going to drill, and drill there - regardless of whether there's any oil - and see whether the earthquakes happen there or not. Obviously, this is impractical.
What we can do, though, is study mechanisms through which this might have happened.
The Lost Discoveries of Hydralic Fracturing (Score:2, Interesting)
Hydralic fracturing has been applied in many setting since hte late 1940s. Much research, by USGS, BLM et al. in the 1970s established induced seismic activity associated with drilling-mining hydralic fracting activities.
The trouble with the current "enlightned" study is a lack of knowledge of how to search bookstacks, those in a Library, to find the printed USGS bullitens, circulars and research papers since they have not been scanned, parsed and made searchabel by electronic database search technologies.
T
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It's just people panicing over the new evil...
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The trouble with the current "enlightned" study is a lack of knowledge of how to search bookstacks, those in a Library, to find the printed USGS bullitens, circulars and research papers since they have not been scanned, parsed and made searchabel by electronic database search technologies.
Oh, and what do you base this on Mr. 'Anonymous Coward'? Would you like to back up your claims of scientific misconduct or don't you believe in facts either?
Re:The Lost Discoveries of Hydralic Fracturing (Score:4, Informative)
Hydraulic fracturing being invented in 1940s is like saying that hybrid cars were invented back in 1769 with the invention of the first automobile.
What hydraulic fracturing being performed today is a variant that was first tested back in 1991, horizontal drilling. Those prior studied were concerned with fracturing processes that were drilling straight down. Not down then a 90 degree turn for as far as a 15-3000m meters depending on the region. The ends are a set length, the farther down they go the less than go horizontal.
Secondly, the abstract wasn't directly talking about hydraulic fracturing directly, just a way they are using to dispose of their waste, injection wells. So you might be right even if you weren't talking about the wrong type of hydraulic fracturing. Ohio currently suspended parts of the shale industry after they noticed an uptick in quakes linked to injections wells.
So the good news is, for the industry and those supporting the natural gas industry, it is the waste disposal method that seems to be causing the problem, not the production itself.
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I'm more concerned with the groundwater (Score:5, Interesting)
That all depends on where the fracking is happenin (Score:2, Informative)
Hopefully since it's far easier to do horizontal and other directional drilling than it used to be we'll be able to put the fracking discussion in the past anyway.
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Shit, I should have written a longer response... You say chemicals although you eat that everyday. Fracking is mostly water, there's some stuff in there for lubricants but it's hardly cancer causing as you've been told Since you don't KNOW what those chemicals are, how do you even know they're cancer causing? Hell, the sun is cancer causing. You really think that companies (oil) are going to do anything to damage themselves?
You're running on conspiracy theory stuff.
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I'm calling bovine excrement.
The fracking process produces as a side effect a wide and uncontrolled range of organic compounds. When you take hydrocarbons, add water, subject that mixture to high pressure and heat, (the heat comes from the compression of the gases), you will create other organic compounds. This will always happen to some degree. Doing this in the wild will most certainly create compounds that are known carcinogens. The only question is to what degree. I would guess that due to the larg
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Dream on. The fracking is expensive, not cheap. The only reason it's done is the cheap oil is gone, no more. You've run out of it and you still haven't cut your demand down.
The gas price difference is mainly due to we pay tax on it, you don't.
and coming shortly... (Score:1)
...five more reports claiming that fracking has nothing at all to do with seismic events which will serve as the justification for the upcoming change of leadership of the USGS.
earthquakes (Score:2)
Oh give me a fraking break... (Score:1)
The greens were all over natural gas until just a few years ago, until suddenly natural gas is the new enemy.
We've been fracking since 1947 and NOW it's a big deal?
Oh yeah, since natural gas prices have dropped and it's sustainable until the rest of my lifetime, now it's the new evil. Seriously?
(my home runs on natural gas, which WAS clean? no? My provider dropped by prices by 1.5% in Nov and again by 5% in Oct)
Seriously, I think they just want us to burn down forests and use wood for heat.
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I got those months backwards.
Um, duh? (Score:2)
And this is really old news. It has been believed that fracking and seismic activity were related for a while now. I could have told you that anyways. Hadn't had earthquakes in my area for decades (probably close to the century mark, but I am too lazy to look it up for sure, and then it was only like one every few decades), but since they started drilling here a couple of years ago, we seem to get one every few months - or rather, one that is measurable. I think the number of really small quakes is actually
Look to the story of Northwich, UK (Score:2)
http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/towns/northwich.shtml
Salt mining caused houses to collapse sometimes 30 miles from the mines, and even then only after 10 years. It was unimaginably hard on the householders - not much welfare back in those days, and the mine owners similarly wanted proof before doing anything about it. The connection has been fully established now, but the horse bolted that entirely-man made disaster a long time ago.
Thanks USGS - Posting from France (Score:3, Informative)
when I frack it causes power outages (Score:1)
It's not really a problem (Score:2, Funny)
It's not really a problem until the Koch family says it's a problem. Besides, if Oklahoma gets turned into a giant sinkhole would anyone really care?
Maybe the econuts are right when they say (Score:1)
Show this to Sean Hannity, please. (Score:1)
He says he refuses to believe fracking can cause earthquakes, because there's "absolutely no evidence" for it - yet the man is also an unapologetic fundamentalist christian... talk about a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
This is alright. (Score:2)
Ladies and gentlemen, put your wallets away . . . (Score:1)
Pig ignorant (Score:1)
What is absolutely certain is that the companies like to keep their patent fracking ingredients secret because it is a well known fact that they know exactly what to put down for the best results and has absolutely nothing to do with bio-hazards and ge
Or it could be something else (Score:2)
Or it could be due to the fact that the Earth is still ringing from the Japan quake and that constructive interference patterns in the waves just happen to peak in the midwest. It's truly sad that what counts for science these days is choosing a conclusion first and then seeking data that backs it up while conveniently ignoring data that doesn't.
Re:Wiggle room indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
In Oklahoma, the rate of M >= 3 events abruptly increased in 2009 from 1.2/year in the previous half-century to over 25/year. This rate increase is exclusive of the November 2011 M 5.6 earthquake and its aftershocks.
A twenty-five-fold increase, that excludes the largest outlying event, in the number of earthquakes would seem to be statistically significant of something.
Re:Wiggle room indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
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IIRC, two thirds of those quakes were within a half mile of drilling sites. Seems significant to me, anyway.
I know "correlation is not causation" and all that, but... I dunno, can this be an exception to the rule?
I think we can safely say that fracking is *somehow* involved in the increase. Even if it's just in this small area, it shows that it is possible and it warrants more investigation.
Why do I have the bad feeling that in the next 10-20 years we're gonna have something like Deepwater Horizon, but it's gonna be on land? Some poor little podunk town that never has earthquakes is gonna be shaken to bits becaus
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Correlation (if it is real), does imply causation, it just doesn't tell you the source or direction of the cause.
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Google the (mythical) hemline index.
That sounds like a website where they categorize pictures of women in miniskirts and rate them.
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And we've been fracking since 1947... So 2009 (once it became a public icon) is some new thing?
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When did disposing of factory farming waste become a major problem?
When --- were stopped pouring agent orange down the mountainsides of Colorado, did they have any left?
How do scientists compare data without knowing exactly what fluids are used and where?
How has the health of people drinking water affected by the fracking processes turned out?
Are they allowed to pour chrome 6 hexides or whatever t
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There, fixed that for you.
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How exactly is a relatively small amount of water being pumped into the ground supposed to destabilize TECTONIC PLATES...
Except no one has ever claimed that it will destabilize plates, since earthquakes can occur for thousands of other reasons that don't directly involve plates. There are still earth quakes in the central continent caused by the lack of glacial pressure, there are earth quakes caused by hot spots, there are earth quakes caused by compression pressures, there are... you get the point. There are areas of the continent completely peppered with faults, far from the nearest plate boundary, this includes vast sw
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You're still talking about an absurd amount of mass that is supposedly being moved by a relatively tiny amount of water. It would be like saying you could destabilize a boulder with a child's water pistol. Only even then the ratio is wrong. The masses we're talking about are vastly larger in ratio then that.
I mean lets just do a simple mas relationship. How many megatons is all the earth involved in one of these supposed quakes? Okay, and how many tons of water is pumped into the ground during one of these
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And this is to much true. When'd you hear about fraking? 2 years ago? It's been going on since 1947.. Natural gas is now getting cheap and we now have an abundance of it. So the solar+wind+whatever crowd is now making a new item to bitch about (and they were all for natgas before). This is NOT new, we've been doing it for decades.
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I agree with everything you said there, only we are using new technology and methods to extract it. The abundance of natural gas is now well beyond what it was in the past due to this technology.
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So if you have an argument against fracking... make it good. Because it needs to be REALLY good to matter at all.
I don't. I don't know enough right now to actually form a decent opinion on it. We need more science, like this study, to actually come up with a cohesive argument either way.
I'm just saying, as a person with a vague interest in geology, that it wouldn't be terribly surprising if there was an effect. If a fault has a large amount of energy stored up in it, a small trigger could let it lose. This isn't news, nor very surprising. I would be actually shocked if there was no potential for fracking to cause
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Scientifically, something has to happen for there to be evidence. It's called empericism of which science is an outgrowth.
So yes, we need an earthquake. And not some sissy "a large truck just passed my house" earth quake within 1000 feet of the drill site.
Remember an earthquake can vary from something so minor not even dogs can detect it to being something so big huge rips form in the earth and cities fall.
It's the difference between a ripple in the water and a tidal wave. And the term "earthquake" is way t
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Every rigorous study funded by whom? Remember when every rigorous study of smoking showed that it was perfectly safe?
You seem immediately ready to disregard THIS particular study that might go against what are most likely industry funded studies that show that fracking is safe.
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Absurd maybe, but true. I have first hand knowledge i'm afraid. i live right on the west coast of the UK, and this time last year, about 10 miles down south of my house they were fracking (and they plan to again) within 2 days a seismic event occurred, measured at the University about 6 miles inland. IT HAPPENED HERE and no words spoken, typed or any intellectual arguments entered into change the recorded facts.
Many thousands of local inhabitants would strongly disagree about the safety of fracking,Just b
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By seismic event I guess you mean they picked up something on the scales? Or you read about it on the news, not something you actually experienced? (and note fraking has been going on since 1947, so sure it's not something you've cared about in your lifetime until now that it is a news item)
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How exactly is a relatively small amount of water being pumped into the ground supposed to destabilize TECTONIC PLATES...
You mean like when a feather (small), lightly brushed across the skin, affects a person (large)?
Sometimes, small things have huge consequences. We don't fully understand the Earth's geology, there are many people with an agenda on both sides of the fracking debate. A ton of money has been invested, and of course: everyone is an expert! This is not a good mix for producing facts.
Peace,
Andy.
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You mean like when a feather (small), lightly brushed across the skin, affects a person (large)?
OH MY GOD WE'RE TICKLING THE EARTH!
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We've been fracking since 1947... it's not something new. So were all other earthquakes caused by it?
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That's true for almost anyone. So by your argument we're not allowed to have opinions on these matters.
Right?
You're wielding a doubled edged sword there, pal. Unless you want to claim elitism you'll find it destroys your position as it destroys mine. And the elitism claim comes with other problems you probably aren't fully aware of...
I'm not an expert in everything. But don't make the mistake of thinking I'm stupid.
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Please note that I am not focusing on your l
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I hear what you're saying about one person setting off an avalanche. However, the avalanche is poised to collapse at any time. The person that set it off was the feather on the camel's back. That ONE LAST THING that just started a big reaction.
The problem with this notion and why I think your view is naive and possibly ignorant (no offense) is that the earth by and large is not so unstable. If it were then little things would be setting it off all the time.
For your comment to make any sense, the earth would
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There is empirical evidence that when this fracking extraction started, the rate of earthquakes shot up. The burden of causal proof should be on the people doing potentially harmful th
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No, the burden is on the people that want it stopped. You can't just make a claim and then shut everything down. You first have to have compelling evidence.
Disagree? Sue them. Ultimately you're just going to have to sue them to stop it. So have your day in court and we'll see what happens.
Try more monkey business with the EPA and that whole branch of the government could get clipped. It's already on thin ice as it is and has recently started loosing major court cases that render many of it's actions illegal
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I got to watch a very interesting lecture on this a month ago, so I'll chime in. Oh, you should cite something for your first claim, otherwise you're playing the "no true Scotsman" game.
For one, what was known as "fracking" up to very recently was done using straight wells, as in drilled straight down. Part of the reason these natural gas deposits haven't been exploited is that most shale (where the gas is locked in) is in very thin, very wide (ranging over hundreds to thousands of miles) formations. A v
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Yes the system is in equilibrium... but there are different types of equilibrium.
Take a pea and put it on a plate. Does the pea roll to the left or the right? Neither. It's in equilibrium in that spot. The amount of energy required to move the pea is roughly equivalent to the energy released by the pea moving.
Take a pea in the middle of a bowl. The pea is still in equilibrium. To move the pea to the left or the right takes MORE energy then the amount of energy released by the pea moving because the edges of