Frack cracks cause 167 earthquakes

Earthquakes had never been recorded at Youngstown in Ohio before 2010. But at the end of that year, frackers started pumping waste from their drilling projects into an injection well near Youngstown – and within two weeks, the area had experienced its first quake. A study by Won-Young Kim, a researcher at Columbia University. published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, records what happened next.

From January 2011 to February 2012, there was an average of nearly twelve earthquakes every month. At first they were barely perceptible, but their magnitude rapidly increased, ending with a 3.9 quake on the last day of 2011, when another load of wastewater had been dumped in the well, bringing the total amount to 495,622 barrels. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources then ordered the well shut down, and after that was done, earthquakes quickly ceased to happen

Kim’s research showed that the frequency and intensity of earthquakes in the area was directly linked to the daily pressure levels in the well. It adds to a growing body of scientific evidence linking the use of fracking wastewater injection wells to earthquakes, some of which were extremely alarming. A string of quakes in central Oklahoma in late 2011 included the most powerful disturbance ever recorded in the state, a frightening magnitude 5.7.

John Upton, who reported Kim’s research on the American site, Daily Grist, blogs about ecology and says he welcomes reader questions, tips, and ‘incoherent rants’. You can contact him at johnupton@gmail.com.