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.
@GeoLurking 7:07am
I don’t think the Rio Grande Rift had anything to do with the 1967-69 Denver seismic activity.
For one thing, the Rift passes 100+ miles west of denver with a couple mountain ranges between them. The Denver Basin has existed since at least the late Paleozoic. Major faults of Laramide age are quite close.
Back in the late 1970’s the link between the Aresenal injection and the Denver quakes was strong, but circumstantial; it could have been just a coincidence. Now 44 years later, without a recurance of the quake swarm in Denver, the chances of coincidence are dropping quickly. I think the evidence that the Arsenal well and the Mag 5+ quakes are a bullseye in X,Y,Z, and T.
Colorado Earthquake and Fault Map (pdf)
Colorado Geology Photojournal with a good summary of Geologic History.
What is humorous about this is that fracking is an old technology. The reason fracking got noticed is because journalists love to spice up their stories with industrial jargon, and fracking sounds cool. The technology was horizontal drilling. The trick came about when they learned to frack in multiple completion zones, which is quite a trick for a mile long horizontal bore. But fracking had been around for quite a while. Anyhow, the journalists summed it all up with a cool sounding term: fracking.
And the greens want to inject CO2 down wells? Well, that is actually happening anyway for enhanced recovery of oil, but it is humorous.
I thought this site was about climate science, but it turns out to be about defending the fossil fuel industry, regardless of the actual topic.
My surprise is entirely sarcastic.
David,
Great post! I have always wondered why they do not tell the depth of quakes when they report those ’caused by’ fracking.
I know the real reason is simple, it would show the fluids COULD NOT have been the cause. Unless, slightly possible, that the fluids caused a slip which then triggered a domino effect.
Fracking is at a different depth in almost all cases than any earth quakes I am aware of.
Ghost.
Stephen Rasey says:
August 10, 2012 at 4:49 pm
@GeoLurking 7:07am
The Rio Grande Rift is a propagating structure. It also falls in the category of a narrow rift, unlike Basin and Range which is a wide rift.
Generally, rift systems will have one or more boundary faults that somewhat parallel the rift axis. Since it it a growing structure, I would not rule out a fault system 100 miles away as being eventually incorporated into it’s spreading. The Ethiopian rift valley has border faults anywhere from 25 to 125 km from the central axis. (however it is a more “mature” system) The failed New Madrid rift has the Commerce fault off to the west at about 20 to 30 km from the axis, and in some texts it is believed to be the western boundary fault for that system. (yeah, I don’t have the text reference handy, I know, I know.) Though it is on a near perfect alignment with the faulting at Guy Arkansas, I don’t think it’s related.
—-
AOGC shut down Type II wells in that area due to what they think is causing the Guy swarm. The brunt of those quakes were much deeper than the sealed depth of those wells, so the only thing I can figure is that the additional fluid may have changed the pore pressure at depth and re-activated an old fault structure or changed the fracture gradient (only thing that makes sense to me)
Southerons are first civil, choosing Gemeinschaft over modern and Northern Gesellschaft (F. Töennies, 1887. Transl. 2001, Community and Civil Society, Harris ed.). There are many epithets that, while appropriate in private conversation, a gentleman avoids in public.
Jason says:
August 10, 2012 at 7:58 am
“I’m on board with the AGW skeptic stuff, but I will likely never be on board with the “fracking is safe” camp. I cannot ever see how injecting toxins into the ground will ever be a good idea, and no one has adequately explained the flammable house water problem to me.
I am, until I see evidence to the contrary, ashamed that this position is being taken up by WUWT.”
Relax old son.
My son’s kindergarten use disinfectant to clean the floors, toilets and kitchens and anti-bacterial hand wash to clean the kids hands before eating, they are toxins (designed to kill micro-organisms); should the kindergarten and the authorities be ashamed of their position? They are after all, shamelessly exposing innocent children to toxins every single day.
If you ever sprayed fly spray in your house, you were injecting toxins into the very air you breath but you wouldn’t have been ashamed that you put yourself and any visitors at risk of exposure to what is more or less nerve gas would you?
Hydraulic Stimulation involves injecting mostly water into a formation to above the rock’s fracture pressure causing a fracture to open and propagate into the formation, increasing the surface area available for hydrocarbon migration into a well. Proppant (sand) keeps those fractures open once the pressure is relieved and the additives you heard activists wringing their hands over in gassland consitute 0.5 – 2% of the fluid by concentration.
Additives are included to reduce the friction of the fluid while flowing (requiring less energy to pump the fluid – less CO2 emissions then), inhibit corrosion, prevent micro-organisms fouling the fractures that are created and to reduce the impact of drilling fluid invasion of the formation.
The frac fluid then flows back out of the well once the stimulation is complete and is either disposed of down an injection well or re-used (which makes more sense to me), if it did not, how would the oil or gas in the target formation flow into the well to be produced?
Why be ashamed or unneccessarily frightened of such a benign industrial process? Be ashamed of leaving toxic anti-bacterial hand wash lying around your house unsupervised.
The flammable house water problem is easy to explain; it’s gas migrating into aquifers. In the same way that oil seeps out of the sea floor into the gulf of mexico, it’s all perfectly natural and been documented since long before fracturing was a possible scapegoat.
Fraccing, fracking, hydraulic fracturing. This is not as recent as many believe. Maybe the term “Fracking” is of recent coinage and this is limiting search. The technique was first tried in 1947 … 65 years ago. Surely we would have had a calamity by now if this was a threat. Wiki- hydraulic fracturing:
“The first use of hydraulic fracturing was in 1947 but the modern fracking technique that made the extraction of shale gas economical was first used in 1997 in the Barnett Shale in Texas.[1][2][3] The energy from the injection of a highly pressurized fracking fluid creates new channels in the rock, which can increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of hydrocarbons.”
I think the outcry is more over the fact that oil and gas haven’t peaked after all and “this has gotta be stopped!” We owe a lot to the much maligned “Big Oil” for our prosperity and wellbeing. And for those who think that this sector is being subsidized – that is a lot of hooey.
“http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=government%20taxes%20and%20the%20price%20of%20gasoline&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA”
“…for a total US average fuel tax of 49.5 cents per gallon for gas (13.07 ¢/L) and 54.6 cents per gallon for diesel”
“current fuel tax in Australia is A$0.7188 per litre for petrol (over over $3.00/gallon)
“Fuel taxes in Canada can vary greatly between locales. On average, about one-third of the total price of gas at the pump is tax. ”
“UK duty rate for the road fuels unleaded petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol is GB£0.5795 per litre (£2.63 per imperial gallon or £2.19 per U.S. gallon)[~$3.00/gal]
On top of this, the oil companies pay corporate taxes, their employees pay income taxes, gasoline stations pay business taxes, income taxes and their employees pay income taxes. I had a friend with a two pump country gas station and auto repair shop with two mechanics. He showed me how his business made $500/day for the governments and a lot less than that for him – and that was 30 years ago! Listen, the only reason the greenies haven’t been able to shut down “Big Oil” is because the actual industry is more “Bigger Government” in terms of profitability. The much ballyhooed “subsidy” is essentially legitimate tax deductions associated with wasting assets – declining reserves that have to be replaced with more expenditure. Your solar panel inc. gets tax deductions for depreciating manufacturing equipment, vehicles, tools at 20% a year and even your buildings at about 5% a year – this is over and above maintenance. I get a kick out of this “subsidizing the oil companies” – this is the biggest industry generator of government income there is.
Here’s what a fellow geologist wrote to me after an earthquake in Oklahoma. Note–there is an enormous different in fluid volume between disposing og 10,000 barrels of water per well per day, and a frac:
“I heard the rumble that actually did turn out to be the earthquake,but needed ten seconds to figure out which it was. Not a big deal. The news keeps trying to blame it on fracs.
No, it isn’t a frac, but we did notice that they are pumping mind boggling amounts of water (over 10,000 barrels water per day perwell) in hundreds of wells near epicenter/fault (huge water reinjection sweep)
old watered-out field recovering about 2% oil cut). Somebodyfrom the USGS did say that this type of water injection could cause up to a 5magnitude quake, however, nobody seems to be listening to him
the misinformed public keeps blaming it on fracs, the industry can continue to categorically deny fracs are the cause.”
@ur momisugly GeoLurking 8/11 12:43 am
I don’t doubt what you say about Rifting in general and the Rio Grande Rift in specifics. I just find any link between it and Denver seismic activity since 1950 to be non-existant.
Look at the Colorado Earthquake and Fault Map (pdf) Do the pink dots show any affinity with a N-S lineation that could possibly be linked with the Rio Grande Rift? Or are they more like clustered around a point source?
When I first saw this map yesterday, I was surprised at how many of the large circles were in the denver area and how few in other places. Now it is true that Denver is probably well covered with seismic stations so we are more likely to record 2s and 3s in Denver rather than in the San Luis Valley, But I don’t think 5s anywhere in the state will go unnoticed.
FILE CREATED: Sat Aug 11 15:36:19 2012Geographic Grid Search Earthquakes= 6
Latitude: 41.000N - 37.000N
Longitude: 103.000W - 109.000W
Catalog Used: USHIS
Date Range: 1950/01/01 to 2012/01/01
Magnitude Range: 4.0 - 10.0
Data Selection: Significant U.S. Earthquakes (USHIS)
CAT YEAR MO DA ORIG TIME LAT LONG DEP MAGNITUDE IEM DTSVNWG DIST
NFO km
TF
USHIS 1960 10 11 080530.50 38.30 -107.60 49 5.5 mbBRK 6F. .......
USHIS 1962 02 05 144551.10 38.20 -107.60 25 4.7 MLGOL 5F. .......
USHIS 1966 10 03 022602.30 37.40 -104.10 10 4.6 MLGOL 6F. .......
USHIS 1967 04 10 190025.50 39.94 -104.75 5 4.3 LgHER 6F. .......
USHIS 1967 08 09 132506.20 39.90 -104.70 5 5.3 mbGS 7F. .......
USHIS 1967 11 27 050924.60 39.87 -104.88 5 5.2 mbGS 6F. .......
Source: neic.usgs.gov Earthquate Search Significant Earthquakes within Colorado 1950-2012
Note the depths of the 1967 triplet.
When I did this same search two years ago, I was sure I got a third Mag 5 in 1968.
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2010/10oct/seismicinduction1010.cfm AAPG Explorer Oct 2010: “Yes, Virginia, there is Induced Seismicity”. Written by David Brown with Frohlich as a principle source.
Article covers The Geysers of California, Denver, Basel Switzerland, with an emphasis on a Dallas 2008 Barnett Case Study conducted by Frohlich, Stump, and Hayward.
<a href=http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2001/12dec/colo_quakes.cfm AAPG Explorer Dec 2001: Colorado Quakes Cause Concern
This is a good summary of the Denver Arsenal, Rangely Oil Field controlled injection experiment, a salt water control operation in the Paradox Valley Delores River, and the most recent episode in the Raton Basin.
The Raton case is possibly associated with a coal bed methane project and a well for disposal of “de-water operations” that took 2.5 million bbls of water in a year. That is 106 million gals, about 2/3 of Denver Arsenal in less time.
Aside from the opinion pieces here I will say what I do know. Not what I think I know.
Near me the town of Blackpool, England, they started fracking in a prime location. They reckoned it could have enough gas to keep us going for many years to come. Then came two localised earthquakes right in the fracking zone. Work was halted. The Canadian firm who invested millions in start up costs wish to carry on but are warned they will incur all damages and costs. now want the Gov’t to push it through by law. Déjà vu.
Earthquakes in England that can be felt underfoot are extremely rare – possibly a twice in a lifetimes experience if you live in the right place. The odds of two separate hits right over the drilling zone almost go far beyond chance. The locals were originally backing this apart from a few who did not think using the mined out salt domes for storage as very clever or safe. Opinions are now very wary to emphatically against it.
In the USA it is common knowledge aquifers have become poisoned. People became ill. Others have massive amounts of gas explosively coming through their taps. Animals have mysteriously died. Methane is now bubbling up from all sorts of ponds, creeks and rivers. That is what they know of!
RT.com plays a pretty horrible documentary about the frackers Mafia/legal tactics to enforce drilling on other peoples land and commonly installing the wells only 200′ from the farmsteads amongst all the other horrors.
What bothers me about drilling for methane is Radon. If the gas companies had the same enforcement on radiation; they would be shut down.
Check out this historical marker.. Apparently fracking dates back to the 1600s!
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Flammable-Water-Sign.jpg
Andyj,
You jump from earthquakes to methane to radon. Relax, there is nothing dangerous about fracking. And think of the enormous amount of harmless, beneficial CO2 it adds to the biosphere!
It’s all good.
And folks in L.A. would laugh at what you call earthquakes. The biggest you have ever seen or felt in England is nothing. Nothing at all. So the cost/benefit analysis says: frack away! There is really no downside.
Andyj:
Correlation does NOT equal causality. Even if one of the correlating events are rare. If tomorrow there was an earthquake and you lived next to wind turbines, would you blame them? Especially if they just went in? People get sick living by turbines. That would make those evil too.
One of the problems with this whole water discussion is people seem to believe ground water is completely enclosed and utterly safe unless some evil fracking company comes along (I would note that blaming the fracking company so they will pay $6000 for a new well when a well goes dry may seem cool, but it’s not. It’s bad behavior. And bad science.) ANY cutting into ground water can contaminate it. Heck, I can pour fracking chemicals down my well and blame the gas industry. Just like I put the chlorine in to kill the e-coli in my well. Methane underground can seep into the well (remember, no barrier–aquifers are not water tanks) and result in water that can “burn”. I live in a state with oil underground everywhere. It’s natural. It also makes my “good” water (which is what realtors call water that needs an RO system–I’m not being sarcastic) full of sulfur and other particulants. My water LITERALLY eats my metal plumbing fixtures after 5 or 6 years. I try to use cheap plastic ones wherever possible. Well water is not sparkling pure in many, many places.
You say you have seen things first hand. I have lived around gas and oil and uranium for thirty years. I see none of what you see when you watch slanted media accounts and people trying to blame someone for their misfortune. That is what I know.
A quote from the original (the good one) Battlestar Galactica: “What the Frack!”.
Has it ever occurred to the “Greens” that if they hadn’t tried to shut off drilling in Alaska and offshore then “fracking” wouldn’t be necessary or profitable?
If you want to blame George Bush for Katrina, blame AlBama for earthquakes.
Each magnitude level represents about 31.6 times more energy released. It takes 32 magnitude 3s to equal the energy released in a magnitude 4, 1,000 magnitude 3s to equal a magnitude 5 … and a billion magnitude 3s to equal a single magnitude 9. So while a small quake may temporarily ease stress on a fault line, it does not prevent a large temblor.
“Methane is now bubbling up from all sorts of ponds, creeks and rivers.”
Methane used to be known as “swamp gas”. Ever wondered why?
TOTAL BS ALERT!!!
“may be…”, “a study suggests…” Two first level BS indicators. *sigh* I really tire of the lame-assed attempts by these buffoons and evil clowns to convince the science illiterati that, “We’re all going to die (if you don’t cough up millions for my research).”
Erny72 says:
August 11, 2012 at 6:36 am
Jason says:
August 10, 2012 at 7:58 am
—————————
on the burning tap water Erny72, don’t forget the other on-site studies showing natural methane from shallow bogs and other natural rot just below ground level. As you note, it’s all a big lie. We’ve even got residents sharing family history of burning water going back to the 1800’s – long before ANY drilling. Jason would be encouraged to do some ACTUAL research on this subject instead of relying on KOS and Huff-N-Puff Post and other hyper-ventilating pits of nonsense for his “facts”.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. – Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Gary Pearse says:
August 11, 2012 at 7:20 am
I have to disagree with you start date for fracing in the Barnett Shale. I was the engineer working for Mitchell Energy in the early ’80s when we started drilling for the Barnett on purpose. It had been encountered for as long as drilling had been going on in North Texas. It was responsible for several blowouts when drilling for deeper plays. Attempts were made to complete in the Barnett but none were successful due to the extremely low permeability (measured in the nanodarcy range).
The first well, C. W. Slay #1, was completed only by perforating due to the fear of what water would do to a shale. We then moved along in a very expensive series of steps. We stimulated wells with injections of nitrogen only, CO2 only (yes, way back then than nasty GHG was used in the oil field for injection), foamed CO2 w/sand, CO2 w/water and sand (the CO2 was used to help unload the well faster). Finally we went to a straight gelled water w/sand completion using about two million pounds of sand. Mitchell had already done five million pound frac jobs over in Limestone County.
These wells were all vertical completions. I lost track of the goings on after the bust in the mid-80’s but it is the combination of the horizontal drilling and the massive frac jobs that make the tight shale gas development economical, albeit at today’s price for gas it is marginal at best.
Mike L.
@Gary Young Pearce
“I think the outcry is more over the fact that oil and gas haven’t peaked after all and “this has gotta be stopped!” We owe a lot to the much maligned “Big Oil” for our prosperity and wellbeing. And for those who think that this sector is being subsidized – that is a lot of hooey.”
Seconded. When will the super-successful solar electric sector have their unnecessary subsidies snipped?
The oil just keeps a-comin’. And as the efficiency of its use continues to improve, I am more and more impressed. Slowly but surely the idea that it is abiotic is slowly sinking in like a grease stain on a concrete floor. No matter how cement-headed the ‘fossil fuel’ believer, it is permeating the collective consciousness: there is a lot more than was heretofore believed.
It was mentioned above that oil is not found/searched for at major fault lines. Well, there is a school of thought that holds the opposite: that the largest oil finds will be at the places where it is able to rise from its place of ‘manufacture’ in the heated deeps. Keep your eye on Haiti and what happens there offshore in the coming years (it is a place of major faults and Big Oil is snooping around).
Proppants are said above to be sand. There are also ceramic proppants with much higher strength and consistent size and shape. See for example http://beta.globalspec.com/featuredProducts/detail?ExhibitId=195273&uid=%2D1459711991&frmtrk=alert Their advantages include having a controllable density to assist mixing and placement at a particular site.
The oil and gas companies are so rich they could give us each a million dollars and it would not touch their bottom line. Instead we are paying taxes to subsidize these corporate raiders who are in our faces saying that fracking does not contribute to earthquakes, and belittles and bullies anyone who tries to stand up to them. If you folks in Arkansas believe that drilling deep into the earth, fracturing the rocks, then injecting mystery fluids into the cracks, is not in any way connected to your earthquakes, then you deserve them.