Hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas production can trigger earthquakes, large and small. A new approach to managing the risk of these quakes could help operators and regulators hit the brakes early enough to prevent nuisance and reduce the chance of property damage and injury.
Hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas production can trigger earthquakes, large and small. A new approach to managing the risk of these quakes could help operators and regulators hit the brakes early enough to prevent nuisance and reduce the chance of property damage and injury.
The approach, developed by four Stanford University researchers and published April 28 in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, centers on a calculation of the risk that shaking triggered by a given project will be felt in surrounding communities – long before earthquakes grow large enough to do harm.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves pumping fluids at high pressure into wells drilled down into and across rock formations thousands of feet underground. The pressure creates small earthquakes that break the rock, forcing open existing fractures or creating new ones. Petroleum then flows more easily out of the cracked rocks and into the well. “The goal is to make many tiny earthquakes, but sometimes they are larger than planned,” said study co-author William Ellsworth, a geophysics professor at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).
Read more at: Stanford University
A hydraulic fracturing drill site in southwestern Pennsylvania. (Photo Credit: Doug Duncan, USGS)
