Friday, January 15, 2016

Welcome To Frackland.

WillWeAllBeOkies
SoonVille


From Michael Wines, writing from flyover land for the New York Times:

Oklahoma was rocked Wednesday night (January 6th, 2015) by two of the state’s largest earthquakes in recent years, further fueling scientists’ concern that the continued burial of oil and gas wastes in seismically active areas was courting a much more powerful earthquake.

The two quakes, measured at magnitudes 4.7 and 4.8, struck at 11:27 p.m. in rural northern Oklahoma, directly beneath a major oil and gas production area. The second quake, which came about 30 seconds later, was the fourth-largest recorded in the state...

{snippety doodle dandy}

...Five years ago, Oklahoma recorded three earthquakes of magnitude 3 — roughly the level at which shocks are felt — or greater. Last year, it recorded 907 quakes, or nearly two and a half a day — and that number was 50 percent higher than in 2014.

Virtually all the quakes are the result of slippage in faults that have effectively been lubricated by watery wastes from oil and gas production that have been pumped underground...



Gosh.

Imagine what would happen if there was such an escalation in the rapidity and the amplitude of ramped-up frack-induced tremors in a land with fault lines so big that a little lubrication-induced slippage might really mean something.

If you get my drift.


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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here on the coast we worry about "the big one". In northeast BC, they are trying to create earthquakes. Go figure.

Markerbuoy said...

"Flyover land" - I love it!

This item and the fracking BS in general reminds me of the wryly metaphorical Gary Lawson, Farside cartoon captioned, "Trouble brewing"; The dingos at Ed's Dingo Farm are lined up against the fence, salivating at the sight of the kids playing over at Doreen's Nursery. http://tinyurl.com/gqgv8co

Politicians and corporations, wilfully blind. On our doorstep...

Kim said...

Add 2 unstable Dams into the equation, with a third being built as we speak. That could make Mt Polley look like a minor problem.