People send me stuff.
This morning my inbox had a forwarded Twitter item about a Tammy post where supposedly none of what McIntyre discovered about the dating problems in Marcott et al hockey stick “matter”, because “Tamino” has proven otherwise, even though Marcott’s PhD thesis with the same proxy data (but not arbitrarily re-dated) does not show the 20th century uptick. But, all Tamino did is throw some artificially generated spikes into the mix, run a process where he doesn’t show the code/work, and say “trust me”. It is amusing. We’ll save that for a future examination, as I’d like to see what Mr. McIntyre has to say.
In the meantime, Josh has a cartoon about a previous episode from Tammyworld:
Josh writes:
Tamino’s recent posts on Marcott et al bear an uncanny similarity to Steve McIntyre’s work at Climate Audit. Dave Burton noticed and commented:
Grant, I find it just plain bizarre that you wrote all this and never even mentioned Steve McIntyre, who first figured out what Marcott had done wrong, and whose excellent work is the whole reason you wrote this.
H/t WUWT
This cartoon imagines Tamino, aka statistician and folk singer Grant Foster, putting things right. Do suggest some more songs that Tamino might like to try. I am sure he will be very grateful.
After getting the email this morning, I decided to look around Tammyworld a bit. What was even more amusing was his post about hydraulic fracturing aka “fracking” and earthquakes, where he tries to show a correlation between recent hockey stick style upticks in low magnitude earthquakes in Oklahoma. Of course as anyone who follows the energy debate knows, “fracking” is the recently “discovered” evil incarnate process, even though it has been in use since 1949, and prior to that they used nitroglycerine to do the same job of enhancing well production by fracturing rock nearby the well casing.
There’s another Josh cartoon in this one, read on.
Tamino leads with:
Mother Jones reports on recent earthquakes in regions not accustomed to much seismic activity, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Ohio. Much of their story consists of anecdotal evidence, particularly the strongest earthquake in Oklahoma history at magnitude 5.6 in November 2011, which happened along a fault which a Univ. of Oklahoma geophysics professor referred to as “a dead fault that nobody ever worried about.” Since this quake “injured two people, destroyed 14 homes, toppled headstones, closed schools, and was felt in 17 states,” people are starting to worry.
I’ve highlighted the stick Tamino focused on.
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/normnum1.jpg
He plots the Oklahoma data and gosh it sure looks like another recent man-made event doesn’t it?
![ok1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ok11.jpg?quality=83)
Source: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ok1.jpg
His conclusion:
So far, the fossil-fuel industry has denied any connection between recent earthquake activity and oil/gas production. The U.S. Geological Survey disagrees. Who you gonna believe?
At first I thought maybe he had a valid point, because the data presented sure looks convincing, and I started looking for data about the number of new wells drilled in Oklahoma to see if it supported his claim, but midway through the search process I started laughing, when I realized Tamino’s vision is just another case of this:
Thanks to Josh for allowing the borrowing and amending of his original cartoon for our entertainment today.
You see, I thought I’d have to do some data wrangling and plotting to see if Tamino’s point was really valid or not. But then, I realized that much like Mann’s hockey stick, and the Yamal incident, where some data that might not support the premise was excluded, so it was with the case with Tamino’s fracktastic analysis.
Some background. Some claim that this paper…
Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma Oklahoma Geological Survey / by Austin Holland
http://www.ogs.ou.edu/pubsscanned/openfile/OF1_2011.pdf
[From the Report]
Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased. There have been previous cases where seismologists have suggested a link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes, but data was limited, so drawing a definitive conclusion was not possible for these cases.
…”proves” that there is a link between fracturing and Earthquakes. Maybe there is, but I thought to myself, “the past, like the blade of the infamous hockey stick is flat, if fracking has been around since 1949, why isn’t there more spikes in earlier data in Tamino’s plot”? Surely, there must have been some fracking going on in oil-rich Oklahoma before 2009 when the uptick started.
The USGS report on the Nov 6th 2011 quake in Oklahoma states:
The magnitude 4.7 and 5.6 earthquakes that occurred on November 5, 2011, were situated in a region located about 50 km east of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Earthquakes are not unusual in Oklahoma, but they often are too small to be felt. From 1972-2008 about 2-6 earthquakes a year were recorded by the USGS National Earthquake Information Center; these earthquakes were scattered broadly across the east-central part of the state. In 2008 the rate of earthquakes began to rise, with over a dozen earthquakes occurring in the region east- northeast of Oklahoma City and southwest of Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2009 the rate of seismicity continued to climb, with nearly 50 earthquakes recorded–many big enough to be felt. In 2010 this activity continued. The magnitude 4.7 and 5.6 earthquakes of November 5, 2011, are the largest events recorded during this period of increased seismicity. Additionally, the M5.6 quake is the largest quake to hit Oklahoma in modern times.
There have been dozens of aftershocks recorded following the shallow November 5, 2011 magnitude 5.6 earthquake and its magnitude 4.7 foreshock that occurred on the same day. These aftershocks will continue for weeks and potentially months but will likely decrease in frequency. This is not an unusual amount of aftershock activity for a magnitude 4.7 to 5.6 earthquake sequence. There is always a small possibility of an earthquake of larger magnitude following any earthquake, but the occurrence of the magnitude 5.6 earthquake, and the increase in activity in recent years does not necessarily indicate that a larger more damaging earthquake will occur.
The word “fracking” or any reference to injection wells or drilling as a possible cause or enhancer is completely absent from the USGS report. Even Scientific American doesn’t buy the hype saying:
Did Fracking Cause Oklahoma’s Largest Recorded Earthquake?
Probably not, as the gas drilling practice tends to be associated with minor quakes, not big ones, seismologists say
It seems simply like just another few and far between earthquake event in the Midwest, like the New Madrid Earthquake, which had it occurred today, some activist would most certainly try to find a fracking connection.
Back to Oklahoma. I mused that Oklahoma really wasn’t in “boom” mode recently (compared to its past drilling history), so why the recent uptick in seismic activity? Was it natural, or enhanced by fracking? And then it hit me; I was looking at the wrong state.
Where is the biggest “boom” in fracking enhanced oil production occurring? North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken formation seen in the map at right.
From this article in Bloomberg news:
To reach the Bakken formation, a 360-million-year-old shale bed two miles underground that geologists say holds a 15,000 square-mile region of oil, companies must use a drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. With fracking, water is pumped down a well with sand and chemicals to crack rock and release oil. Officials estimate the field could be productive for as long as 25 years.
Wikipedia says:
New rock fracturing technology available starting in 2008 has caused a recent boom in Bakken production. By the end of 2010 oil production rates had reached 458,000 barrels (72,800 m3) per day outstripping the capacity to ship oil out of the Bakken.[8][9] The production technology gain has led a veteran industry insider to declare that the USGS estimates are too low.[10]
It stands to reason that with this much fracking going on in the biggest oil boom region in the USA in a short and recent time span, surely there must be some seismic effects as a result of it. Surely there must be a cluster of small quakes around the Bakken region?
Nope.
Locations of earthquakes with magnitude 3 or greater
Source: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/quakes.jpg
I have to wonder why Tamino didn’t plot the USA with magnitude 1 or greater quakes, since that dataset is what he focused his main analysis on? Just looking at magnitude 3 and greater, there isn’t much of a signal in Oklahoma anyway, and the nearby New Madrid fault seems to have more.
So, what does the USGS earthquake data that Tammy plotted say about eastern Montana and North Dakota where the big fracking boom is happening (highlighted in yellow)?
Source: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/normnum1.jpg
The earthquake data for the Bakken region is as flat as the plains of North Dakota itself.
So on the question of “does fracking causes earthquakes”, “Who you gonna believe?”.
I think I’ll pass on Tamino’s visions.
UPDATE: Tamino has responded,
He shows that a Scientific American article suggested that fracking was probably not the cause of Oklahoma’s biggest quake on record. And by God, if fracking isn’t wreaking seismic hell in Nebraska then Anthony Watts won’t accept that there’s any evidence of its having an impact anywhere.
LOL!
He predictably ignores the issue I point out with Bakken and lack of earthquakes there. but doubles down on Oklahoma, and then despite the act that his previous post title says:
Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?
…he goes to plan B “look a squirrel!” and goes to the wastewater injection well argument.
Anthony Watts pushes the idea that there’s no relationship between fracking and increased earthquake activity, he won’t even consider an indirect relationship due to the wastewater injection which fracking requires. Both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Research Council disagree. Who you gonna believe?
I’ll believe the data, and the data says there are NOT swarms of Earthquakes in the Bakken formation, but there are some in Oklahoma. This difference is an issue, and he’s offered no explanation for this conundrum.
Does fracking and its byproduct wastewater cause some earthquakes? Maybe – but correlation is not causation, much like the correlation lie activist Josh Fox made in Gasland about flammable gas in well water, which turned out to be there long before fracking. It may simply be that some areas are more sensitive than others, or some processes are better than others, but it certainly doesn’t suggest that all fracking and its byproduct wastewater injection causes earthquakes as activists would like you to believe. It has only been recently an issue since global warming “concerns” have turned it into a potential tool to shut down energy production.
So if there some small magnitude 1-3 earthquakes in Oklahoma, are they big enough to worry about, much like the small earthquakes around mining operations known for decades? Probably not. I sure don’t, only the activists seem to get upset about this.
Since Tamino cited an event in the UK, (although Wales was claimed) it is instructive to have a look at what they say on page 40 of The Royal Society report (h/t Miguelito): Shale gas extraction in the UK: a review of hydraulic fracturing June 2012 (PDF)
5.3 Seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing
There are two types of seismicity associated with hydraulic fracturing. Microseismic events are a routine feature of hydraulic fracturing and are due to the propagation of engineered fractures (see Chapter 4). Larger seismic events are generally rare but can be induced by hydraulic fracturing in the presence of a pre-stressed fault. The energy released during hydraulic fracturing is less than the energy released by the collapse of open voids in rock formations, as occurs during coal mining. The intensity of seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing is likely to be smaller due to the greater depth at which shale gas is extracted compared to the shallower depth of coal mining. Magnitude 3 ML may be a realistic upper limit for seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing (Green et al 2012). If a seismic event of magnitude 3 ML occurs at depths of 2-3km, structural damage at the surface is unlikely.
…
On 1st April 2011, the Blackpool area experienced a seismic event of magnitude 2.3 ML shortly after Cuadrilla’s Preese Hall well in the Bowland Shale was hydraulically fractured. Another seismic event of magnitude 1.5 ML occurred on 27th May 2011
following renewed hydraulic fracturing of the same well.
…
Analysis of the seismic data suggests that the two events were due to the reactivation of a pre-stressed fault. In abscence of further data it is difficult to determine whether the fault was directly intersected by the well, or whether hydraulic fracturing led to pressure changes that induced a distant fault to slip.
Note this: “Magnitude 3 ML may be a realistic upper limit for seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing (Green et al 2012).” That supports what has been said about the November 5th, 2011 magnitude 5.6 earthquake it Oklahoma – it doesn’t seem likely that it was connected to fracking, though many people (Tamino included) want it to be, because then it becomes a political tool if they can prove it.
So has this event in Blackpool stopped anything in the UK? No, the UK Shale Gas Boom is going ahead, because rational people realize that the risks are small and the benefits far outweigh those risks:
Earlier this month the UK gave the go-ahead to hydraulic fracturing, under tight regulatory conditions, a year after the practice was suspended when an exploration company triggered two small earth tremors in Lancashire.
Problem solved.
But Tamino hates fracking, hates “deniers”, and generally is just an unpleasant bloke about anything that has to do with talking point issues pushed by the left. I find him and his irrational hatred of anything associated with oil extraction wholly amusing, and it’s the best free Saturday entertainment you could ask for.
So who you gonna believe? Well I believe fracking, like any process, has some risks, and the benefits far outweigh the highly publicized events used as political tools. I also believe I’ll go fill up my gas tank and turn on my natural gas powered fireplace. – Anthony
UPDATE2 4/7/13: From a guest post last year by David Middleton:
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.
Tamino believes that miniscule amounts of wet material forcefully injected into the earth is causing massive amounts of solid continental crust to violently move and cause quakes…
That’s like a flea causing an elephants skin to rip with a single bite.
Now if the material add sufficient lubricity to a fault under tension and the tension is released; then that is darn good news! Studies in California have identified that where the major faults slip without trouble than minor earthquakes are normal and rarely damage. It’s where the faults get stuck and tension builds until the earth ‘fracks’ from the pressure and a major earthquake occurs.
If Tamino is proving that a little lube goes a long way to averting earthquake disasters, then that’s terrific.
Sorry Tamino, all your effort does is prove how good fracking is for mother earth.
URGENT on Marcott study:
Andy Revkin of Dot Earth/NY Times blog is inviting questions to be submitted to the authors of Marcott et al. (2013). Since Revkin is one of the only journalists who might have a chance of getting the study authors to be responsive, this is a good opportunity.
Specifically, he’s asked for someone to prepare one list of questions which are “perceived as unanswered.”
Folks could start a list here at WUWT to post at Dot Earth, or simply post questions/points at Dot Earth until we have a good list.
submit questions on Marcott study to Dot Earth/NY Times blog
Tamino is rapidly becoming a rather sorry impersonator of Peter Gleick.
Edele’s song: ‘I set fire to the brain’ Titanic song: ‘My heat will go on’
Townsend’s: ‘I can’t explain’, Shania’s ‘That don’t impress me much’
It is quite likely that E. Grant Foster, whose education is a great unknown, has never taken a college physics or chemistry class.
There are only two types of people in the world:
Those who know, those who think they know and those who say, “let’s check this out a little longer.”
And then there are the mathematically-challenged.
The phenomenon that has been happening is the awestruck uninformed perceived outrage about artificial big numbers.
IF fracking causes very minor earthquakes, why is that automatically bad?? Fracking may actually be good if it causes very minor earthquakes. Much better to have hundreds of very small earthquakes rather than one huge one. The BIG ONE is building up here in CA, if we could release the stress on a daily basis with a lot of magnitude 1-3 earthquakes rather than let all that stress buildup until it release a magnitude 8+, wouldn’t it be much better…especially if we could recover $1,000,000,000,000 worth of oil at the same time?
The ‘explanation’ is inherent in the Mother Jones article Tamino cites. One of the points the MJ article makes is that drilling sites should be tested for seismic risk. That’s the difference – the seismic risk in one area is different to another. That ‘explanation’ is quite easily found by reading the originating article.
Skepticism points out the holes in a hypothesis. Good science then seeks to address the issues raised to see if there are answers. We almost get there in the top article.
But does the author investigate? No. So I did. Three minutes googling revealed that North Dakota, where Bakken is concentrated, is one of 4 US states with no documented fault lines.
The top article goes on;
The MJ article specifically mentions that a better method may include pumping less water, and records practises that may mitigate the risks. Nowhere in the MJ article is there any talk of banning fracking. Or in Tamino’s article.
The last phrase of the sentence
1) creates a straw man (by ignoring – or didn’t read carefully enough?) that the areas of interest are where there are fault lines nearby. 10 miles was one suggested limit.
2) Devolves into politics.
Here is an opportunity for further enquiry on the subject, rather than merely a rhetorical rebuttal or any kind of advocacy, which the top article concludes with;
No such advocacy on fracking/ban fracking is found in the Tamino or Mother Jones article. Tamino’s post specifically addresses the industry claim that there is ‘no evidence’ that fracking can cause Earthquakes. There is certainly evidence. And that is the limit of Tamino’s comments.
Don’t have time to read the studies linked for the next couple of days. Do they specify seismic-risk areas?
Here’s one I like, from Sir William Gull:
Foster is an angry little man isn’t he?
You have to wonder what event makes people so bitter and twisted like this little bloke?
Regards
Mailman
Barry,
http://lifesecure.typepad.com/.a/6a010536a57ad4970c01538e6e8f1b970b-popup
Interesting that there is a band that runs through the spin of North America where there are few known fault lines and little recorded seismic activity…one of them of course being Fosters area of interest.
Of course being a real scientist I’m sure Foster explored fully all possible explanations during his investigation in an effort to understand fully why various things are happening.
Yes…of course he did that..
BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 🙂
Finally, lets not forget that the vast majority of these so called micro earth quakes are undetectable to humans.
Regards
Mailman
‘I also believe I’ll go fill up my gas tank and turn on my natural gas powered fireplace. – Anthony”
Any warm-mongers out there who don’t use gasoline in their cars or gas heating when required? No? Thought not.
I would think it would be a good thing to have minor tremors to relieve the stress in a fault line as opposed to a major slippage creating a damaging earthquake. Maybe we should frack along the San Andreas.
Mailman,
Great seismic map.
The area is medium risk, which is apposite for the study. High-risk areas would have more noisy data, making it difficult to pick out any trends.
The author of the article here is comparing two areas without considering whether there is a different geology. There is. One is virtually zero-risk of seismic activity (Bakken), while the other carries a medium risk (Tamino’s focus). Tamino’s point is that there is statistical evidence that fracking and Earthquakes are related, contrary to industry rejection of that possibility, which itself is contrary to scientific studies on the matter.
The possibility that fracking causes earthquakes in unstable areas is worthy of further study, and perhaps some precautionary changes in procedure (like assessing the are for seismic risk, pumping less wastewater) might be advisable until there is more certainy (either way) on the matter.
REPLY: Sorry, your logic fails. Foster asked a general blanket question with no caveats “Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?”. He didn’t qualify his question with geological stability or geography. Like most activists he’s pushing the “all fracking is bad” idea, much like Josh Fox did in “Gasland”. – Anthony
I smoke cigarettes. I have no trouble advising people that smoking can injure their health.
Is my advice wrong because I don’t take it myself? No.
Am I a hypocrite? No. I’m just addicted to cigarettes.
REPLY: And gasoline, and natural gas (Unless of course you can “quit at any time”) – Anthony
“It stands to reason that with this much fracking going on in the biggest oil boom region in the USA in a short and recent time span, surely there must be some seismic effects as a result of it.”
Why? Doesn’t it really “stand to reason” that fracking might have different consequences in regions if they are geologically dissimilar? Did you investigate the geology of North Dakota as opposed to, say, Oklahoma? Or are you simply assuming that there’s no difference?
REPLY: Did Foster investigate North Dakota, No. Did Foster investigate geologic differences, No. Did Foster ask a general blanket question with no caveats “Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?” Yes.
Of course I’m the bad one. Riiiight.
– Anthony
Bob Dylan composed a song for the occasion:
Subterranean Hockeystick Blues
Frakken in the Bakken
Frakken in the Bakken
There was frack all else to do.
I think most rational, objective and knowledgeable individuals with technical backgrounds have this same thought.
Those prone to emotional, knee-jerk reactions based on mistaken assumptions or falling for presentations by hucksters playing to an audiences’s gullibility not so much …
Eyewitness accounts to the New Madrid Earthquake reported the ground nearly becoming liquid and accompanied by a sulphurous smell that would seem to also lend credence to theory that the release of sub-surface under-pressure gasses (including hydrocarbons) may reduce the amount of damage that will result from the oft-foretold ‘next big one’.
As a matter of fact, I was nose-witness to a tremor centered at New Madrid back in the yr 2000 timeframe … I noted the distinct smell of Sulfur Dioxide at my locale before I was made aware of the occurrence of the quake …
.
“Saturday Silliness: Tamino aka Grant Foster fracks himself”
I don’t want to brag, but I own an 1980’s pair of Foster Grant sunglasses.
barry says:
April 7, 2013 at 5:11 am
Any warm-mongers out there who don’t use gasoline in their cars or gas heating when required? No? Thought not.
I smoke cigarettes. I have no trouble advising people that smoking can injure their health.
Is my advice wrong because I don’t take it myself? No.
Am I a hypocrite? No. I’m just addicted to cigarettes.
REPLY: And gasoline, and natural gas (Unless of course you can “quit at any time”) – Anthony
—————-
You know, this touches on a point I think is important. The analogous question I really care about is this, do you therefore advocate government intervention to drive cigarette prices up and discourage people from smoking? I submit that at this point one does indeed become a hypocrite, or worse.
I Can’t Stop Lying to You,
I’ve made up my mind,
to live in mendacity,
all the lonesome time.
I can’t stop wanting lies,
it’s useless to try,
so i’ll just make stuff up,
to support all my lies.
Those happy days,
when grants come in,
I just can’t wait,
though I know it’s a sin,
they say that time,
heals a broken prediction,
but time has stood still,
for the last sixteen years.
Mark Bofill says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
April 7, 2013 at 8:18 am
———–
Bleh I’m sorry, getting off topic. Feel free to snip.
Anthony, the point is that you are apparently assuming that there is no risk because there was no increase in activity in North Dakota. That is not a valid assumption, because they are geologically quite different. What Tamino did or did not do is wholly irrelevant to that.
Earthquakes are caused by one plate sliding over another, which is the inevitable result of the small, but relentless process of plate tectonics. It should be obvious that mining operations have nothing to do with this.
While it is possible that fracking can cause minor tremors due to fracturing rock, this is not the same as an earthquake. Could fracking cause boundary plates to suddenly slide? Maybe, but the plates would have slid anyway, and if this occurs early due to fracking, it would result in a smaller quake than would have otherwise occurred if stresses were allowed to build up. It is illogical to suggest that fracking causes earthquakes out of nothing.
chrisd3 says:
April 7, 2013 at 5:21 am
…
REPLY: Did Foster investigate North Dakota, No. Did Foster investigate geologic differences, No. Did Foster ask a general blanket question with no caveats “Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?” Yes.
—-
It’s all part of post normal science Anthony; the burden of demonstrating a thorough methodology rests squarely on the skeptic these days. /sarc?
@Mark Bofill:
Ah, the “Timmy did it too” excuse. Given that North Dakota and Oklahoma are geologically quite different, assuming that fracking is safe because there has been no increase in seismic activity in North Dakota is unwarranted. What Tamino did or did not do is wholly irrelevant to that.