Are the science journalists ignorant of science? Or are they intentionally misleading the public?
Earthquakes triggered by fluids injected deep underground, such as during the controversial practice of fracking, may be more common than previously thought, a new study suggests.
Firstly, there is nothing “controversial” about fracking. Fracking has been a common well completion practice for more than 50 years. The practice of large-scale fracking of shale formations is somewhat more recent… But even that practice is 30 years old. Mitchell Energy was fracking the Barnett Shale in North Texas and the Bossier Shale in East Texas back in the 1980’s.
Secondly, the study cited in the Live Science junk journalism did not relate fracking to earthquakes…
Frohlich, 2012 found no correlation between fracking and earthquakes… NONE, NADA, ZIP, ZERO-POINT-ZERO…
Most earthquakes identified in the study ranged in magnitude from 1.5 to 2.5, meaning they posed no danger to the public.
“I didn’t find any higher risks from disposal of hydraulic fracturing fluids than was thought before,” says Frohlich.”My study found more small quakes, nearly all less than magnitude 3.0, but just more of the smaller ones than were previously known. The risk is all from big quakes, which don’t seem to occur here.”
All the wells nearest to the eight earthquake groups reported high injection rates (maximum monthly injection rates exceeding 150,000 barrels of water). Yet in many other areas where wells had similarly high injection rates, there were no earthquakes. Frohlich tried to address those differences.
Texas map showing the Barnett Shale (gray) and rectangle indicating region mapped in figure 2. Credit: Cliff Frohlich/U. of Texas at Austin.
“It might be that an injection can only trigger an earthquake if injected fluids reach and relieve friction on a nearby fault that is already ready to slip,” says Frohlich. “That just isn’t the situation in many places.”
Hydraulic fracturing is an industrial process in which water and various chemicals are pumped deep underground in order to fracture rock, allowing oil or gas to more easily flow to a well. As petroleum is produced at the surface, most hydraulic fracturing fluids return to the surface too. Frohlich is careful to point out that he did not evaluate the possible correlation of earthquakes with the actual hydraulic fracturing process, but rather the effects of disposing of fracturing fluids and other wastes in these injection wells.
And finally, as I have previously posted, the induced seismicity from fracking and most injection operations is almost entirely nonpalpable.
More BS from the Greens trying to stop the use of gas as it is cheap and clean, they just want more windmills. Fracking causing earthquakes complete and utter rubbish.
I’m confused. Doesn’t the abstract say “This suggests injection-triggered earthquakes are more common than is generally recognized”, implying earthquakes are triggered by injection (i.e. fracking?)
I just re-read the article you linked and the comment you posted:
“Earthquakes triggered by fluids injected deep underground, such as during the controversial practice of fracking, may be more common than previously thought, a new study suggests.”
It’s a reasonable assumption that the article got that from the abstract of the paper:
“This suggests injection-triggered earthquakes are more common than is generally recognized””
“Are the science journalists ignorant of science? Or are they intentionally misleading the public?”
They are intentionally misleading the public.
Why do you have to ask?
Sometimes unexpected things do happen.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermie#Staufen_im_Breisgau
It was not exactly fracking, but rather a geothermic drilling.
(unfortunately, in German).
Its just our good luck that 4 earthquakes at 1.5 magnitude is not the same as 1 earthquake at 6 magnitude, If fracking helps tectonic plates make lots of small adjustments for internal stresses rather than one large one thenso much the better, werent they trying to do exactly this with the San Andreas fault over the last 30 years or so
When it comes to earthquates, I think it is critical to separate the fracking operation from the fluid disposal operation. My opinion is that the fracking is not and cannot be the source of earthquakes. But I believe there is ample evidence that high volume fluid disposal in deep wells can be the source of induced seismicity.
See my comment from March 12 where I discuss the Denver Rocky Mountain Arsenal #3 well and its almost conclusive connection to a quake series in north Denver from 1965-1968.
I point out a couple of phrases from Frohlich
“I didn’t find any higher risks from disposal of hydraulic fracturing fluids than was thought before” – Since there are people who believe high volume disposal can cause quakes, Frohlich’s comment is quite ambiguous. What was thought before?
All the wells nearest to the eight earthquake groups reported high injection rates (maximum monthly injection rates exceeding 150,000 barrels of water).
150,000 bbl/mo = 6,600,000 gal/mo. Denver was about 9,000,000 gal / mo for 18 months.
Hypothesis: It is not necessarily the max rate but the volume, at least in part.
How long have these frack recovery fluid disposal wells been active? Injection into formations near faults might be a fault trigger. But is that the only mechanism?
That the biggest Denver quakes occured months AFTER the injection stopped is I think a key to understanding another mechanism. Thermal contraction and expansion might play a part as well as pore pressure changes. A large volume of cool water during disposal can contract the formation causing minor quakes from settling. After the well is abandoned and sealed, Geothermal gradient heating will slowly expand the rock, but the stresses will be larger as it fights the accomidation during the prior settling. Larger stresses = larger quakes some time after the disposal well is sealed. So check quakes against cumulative volume as well as rates of fluid.
“Might’, ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, ‘possibly’, I really think adverbials of probability should be banned from all documents relating to climate change/disruption/warming/earthquakes from any media publication/TV documentary.
WTF? This entire study was done using the latest system of seismometers put in place for just this type of reason. The science sure seems pretty good and he notes that these tremors do not happen in some sites but do in others and offers explanations.
Podcast here: http://grokscience.wordpress.com/ (the host is odd but the UT prof gives an excellent explanation of his work for the layman)
But reporting something is not much of a problem doesn’t sell newspapers.
Might just as well blame the vulcanism in NZ on fracking in Taranaki
along with the supposed earthquakes everywhere else it’s done in the.
world.
Fracking has been done there for over 30 years. Nobody knew, until
recently. Now Mt Tongariro has had a huff and a puff and it’s neighbour
on the same tectonic plate boundary, White Island, has burst into life too
(off the east coast of the North Island, near Whakatane). I’ve been told
(unverified hearsay at present), an underwater volcano further to the north
east is also clearing its tubes.
I’m waiting for some ignoramus to make the connection. Ten, nine …
eight …
Those volcanoes from Mt Taranaki through Ruapehu, Ngaruhoe, Tongariro,
White Island and a chain of underwater cones up to Raoul Island in the
Kermadecs all follow the boundary between the western side of the Pacific
plate and the Australian plate, up through the Kermadec Trench to the biggies
in Indonesia (Tamboura, Krakatau et al). It could be exciting (!!! Big Bang!!!)
but maybe not. Meanwhile, life goes on …
I´m just waiting for the loonies to say ” We cannot explain this without CO2″
The alarmists who try to scare everyone over the risks of earthquake totally ignore the fact that by inducing a minor quake you reduce the tensions that could have lead to a major one. People not used to quakes, like the majority of us in the UK, would not even realise what these small quakes were if we felt them at all.
Underground nuclear testing produced no serious earthquakes so fracking certainly would not.
Good post.
a new study “suggests”……“It might be” that an injection can….
And may I “suggest” that “it might be” that a rain dance could provoke rain? I mean, it might be?
It must be the heatwave making those tree-huggers feel tremors.
Since earthquakes can be very damaging to life and property when the stresses are not relieved incrementally but build up go all at once then why isn’t fracking considered beneficial at relieving these stresses before the “big one” can happen? .. Maybe because there’s no connection.
“My favorite hobby is debunking the junk science of the radical environmentalists.”
Mine too. The problem is they live in a world of their own; blind to reason, hard facts and inconvenient data, but inexplicably supported by a gullible public who believe everything green is good. A concept eagerly grasped by devious politicians seeking tax dollars and votes.
As a practicing geologist, I simply do not understand the concept of why fracking is supposed to be bad for the environment. I came to the self-evident conclusion that the greenies recognised they needed to find a new revenue generating scam to replace the global warming one, which has now passed its ‘sell by’ date.
Fracking is ideal to replace global warming, as the facts also can be twisted to produce scary predictions for a gullible public. And as we all know, scary unfounded predictions are a reliable way of generating tax dollars for ‘research’.
Anti-frackers always conflate fracking, which is a transient well treatment, with injection, which is ongoing. The analogy I use is the comparison between a hypodermic injection and an IV.
An ill-sited injection well might — might — cause a problem if it were injecting fluid into a potentially-active fault plane. It would not matter if the fluid injected were produced water, waste frac fluid, or mother’s milk.
But injecting compresse CO2 underground is simply wonderful.
Fracking radical environmentalists! They do get everywhere don’t they?
Earth tremors are occurring constantly throughout the UK, always have been always will. That’s the trouble with hyper-sensitive modern measuring equipment, it is so sensitive that the slightest hairline movement is picked up that wouldn’t have been in the past! Goes back to cracks in walls that my clients see for the first time, then they are most adamant that they are new & fresh & their house is falling down, especially when I tell them the cracks have been there for donkeys years & their 17th century pride & joy has been moving with the sub-soils for 200 years plus, & don’t live in very old houses if they don’t want to see cracks! Personally I blame Global Warming, why not, everything else is blamed on it 😉
DM: “Are the science journalists ignorant of science? Or are they intentionally misleading the public?”
I suggest that, as members of the scientifically illiterate public, journalists are ignorant of the boundaries (Popper’s problem) of science, confusing it with the validation of technology. With the investment in the technological Emperor’s new clothes, it is unlikely that the skeptical scientists’ cry will be heard. “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” He has spent his money on marketeering!
Coincidence? I promise, yes!
CONTEMPT FOR THE MEDIA, By Former Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson,
August 8, 2012, NewsWithViews.com
Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” tells the story of two charlatans who persuade the emperor to let them weave beautiful new garments for him. In reality, the charlatans are weaving nothing. They are only pretending as they perpetrate a huge hoax on the emperor and his court. Anyone who could not see the lovely cloth, said the charlatans, was stupid. Not wishing to be thought stupid, the emperor and his court all persuade themselves that they see the clothes. They went along with what they were told by the charlatans. (http://www.newswithviews.com/Johnson/karen111.htm)
The press will spout, and people will believe what they want. One of these beliefs is that fracturing (I abhor the unword “fracking”) causes earthquakes capable of damage. The energy budget is just not there. And even after a simple scientific explanation to that effect, people will still dismiss with the typical “well, that may be the case, but fracking is still bad”, akin to the “well, global warming may not be serious, but we should err to the cautious just in case”. This seems to be the method of the uninformed, or that of the uncritical thinker. Nothing seems to dissuade them from this agnosticism. The press seems to know this, and in their smug way, exploit it to the max. It’s how “documentaries” like Gasland can get a foothold…promoting bold-faced untruth as fact.
Exactly. The whole concept needs to be thrown right back into their ugly lying faces. My response to charlatans who say ‘fracking triggers earthquakes’ is – IT WOULD BE A WONDERFUL ADVANTAGE IF IT ACTUALLY DID!