Earthquake Swarm in Arkansas Intensifies. Memphis, Tennessee could be epicenter for the next big one

I brought up an old thread yesterday,
but I don't think anyone saw my posting
about the booms we have been hearing
here in N. Indiana. Once yesterday and
the day before. Very loud and rattles
the windows. Also heard that humming
sound a couple of day ago. I didn't
post it here before as this is for Arkansas
and Tenn., however any thing significant
on the Madrid fault would effect us as well.
So more booms, I wonder what is going
on? Would like to hear the sounds as
well.

interesting series of quakes going across the country.

I never considered an East/West division. I know the doomsday people will have a field day if the country cracks into the shape of a giant cross (North/South and East/West)

Gives new meaning to the term Bible Belt.

Lots of off in the distance noises here in St. louis-cannot pin them down but sounded like crashing waves booming. About 3 PM

It's official. Fracking causes earthquakes. Anytime the gas companies claimed there's no scientific proof, they'll be misinformed. Geologists in England are now accepting that fracing causes earthquakes.

www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk...

Local paper story today. Have to pay to see it online here is the link and story.
www.arkansasonline.com...

As quakes register near Quitman, fewer shaken up
By Kenneth Heard

LITTLE ROCK — Geologists have recorded more than a dozen earthquakes near Quitman this month, but locals haven’t felt many of the smaller ones and they aren’t fearing the ones they do experience.

It’s a change from the concerns residents felt when hundreds of quakes shooknear Greenbrier and Guy along a fault system south of Quitman. Scientists said the recent earthquakes, which are at the northern end of the system, are just a natural continuation of the seismic activity that began last year.

“People are talking about them, but they’re not running around saying, ‘The sky’s falling,’” said Quitman PoliceChief Todd Henry.

Since Oct. 2, at least 18 earthquakes have rumbled under the southwestern Cleburne County town of about 700. A 3.3-magnitude quake Oct. 5 was the largest. Many of the temblors were less than the 2.5-magnitude quakes that people generally notice.

Faulkner and Cleburne counties have seen more than1,200 earthquakes since natural-gas drilling companies began injecting wastewater into 6,000-feet deep wells last summer.

Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey, said the injections triggered the quakes. A magnitude-4.7 earthquake Feb. 27 near Greenbrier was the largest Arkansas quake inmore than 30 years.

The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission banned the use of the injection wells in July and since then, the number of quakes have tapered.

WRONG!!!

But the ground is still shaking.

“I think this is still the effects of the wells,” Ausbrooks said. “I think we’ll continue tosee more for a while.”

A majority of the earthquakes were centered near Guy and Greenbrier along the southern end of a 10-mile fault system.

The quakes in Quitman are centered at the northern edge of the system.

Ausbrooks said the Quitman quakes are nothing to be alarmed at; it’s energy migrating north from the original epicenters.

“We’re seeing the same pattern that we saw in the southern end,” he said. “We have a build up of a series of quakes popping. Then there’s one significantly sized one that has a triggering effect of several smaller ones.

“The smaller ones are the after-effects of the activity,” he said.

He compared the quakes in Faulkner and Cleburne counties to those that shook along a fault system near Denver in the 1960s and 1970s. Workers injected wastewater into wells during construction of the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal in 1966. It took seven years before the earthquakes stopped after drilling was completed, he said.

Geologists will install monitors along the northern edge of the fault system to continue studying the Quitman quakes.

One monitor will be placed near Center Ridge in eastern Conway County. A second one will be placed along Arkansas 124 east of Quitman.

“We’ll see some more activity,” he said.

Residents in the area talk more about their theories of what’s causing the earthquakes than expressing any fear about them.

“Most think it’s the fracking,” Chief Henry said, referring to the drilling operations in the area. “I’m not a geologist. I don’t know.

“Most everyone has felt one or more of them, but it’s not affecting anyone’s life,” he said. “Most everyone is living life like they normally do.”

This article was published today at 4:57 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 10/16/2011

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One way to bring about the end of fracking is through the legal process. It's slow. The lawyers get rich. But sometimes, in the end, it's the thing that stops the works.

insurancenewsnet.com...

Susan, the lawyers will want to know geologists in England have concluded fracking causes earthquakes. They will make excellent expert witnessess.

reply to post by Robin Marks


They have the links, I send them everything I can find.

LITTLE ROCK — A company whose drilling-fluid disposal well was one of four linked to an outbreak of minor earthquakes in the Fayetteville Shale natural-gas formation in Arkansas and was shut down by the state has declared bankruptcy.

Clarita Operating LLC filed for Chapter 7 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Eastern District of Oklahoma on Friday, listing $126,148 in assets and $398,442 in liabilities.

“We slogged along for months and months, paying our employees and our electric bill ... but at some point we just had to cut our losses,” said Mickey Thompson, a partner in Ada, Okla.-based True Energy Services, Clarita’s parent company.

Since September 2010, there have been more than 1,000 earthquakes in the Guy area of Faulkner County, including a magnitude-4.7 earthquake on Feb. 27, the largest quake in the state in more than 30 years.

The Oil and Gas Commission voted in July to shut down the four disposal wells in a 1,100-square-mile area mostly north of Conway. The Clarita well and another operated by Chesapeake Operating Inc. and later BHP Billiton had been shut down since March while the Arkansas Geological Survey studied whether they were causing the earthquakes.

In June, Larry Bengal, director of the commission, announced the agency would seek the permanent shutdown area that affected two other wells — one operated by BHP and the other by Oklahoma City-based Deep Six Water Disposal Services.

Only Deep Six showed up at the July hearing in El Dorado to contest Bengal’s request.

“Our not showing up for the hearing was simply about a total lack of faith of any kind of due process,” Thompson said. “We’ve been denied due process throughout, we’ve been stonewalled ... and we had all we could stand.”

Natural-gas companies dump their wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, into the 504 disposal wells around the state. Fracking requires millions of gallons of water and chemicals to be injected into a natural-gas well to break up the shale and free the gas.

There are more than 3,000 active drilling wells in the Fayetteville Shale formation, which stretches across northern Arkansas.

During the hearing, Steve Horton, a research scientist with the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis, said that the earthquake swarm was caused by pressure created by disposing of millions of gallons of water on top of a previously unknown fault system.

Deep Six’s attorney, Robert Honea of Fort Smith, contended the earthquakes were caused by the other wells but could not be connected to the Deep Six well.

BHP, which bought Chesapeake’s Arkansas assets earlier this year, did not contest the shutdown and voluntarily plugged its two wells by filling them with concrete.

Since the hearing, Deep Six has also plugged its well, according to commission Deputy Director Shane Khoury.

Only the Clarita well has not been plugged.

When obtaining a permit to establish a disposal well, the commission required Clarita to post a $50,000 bond in case it abandoned the well without plugging it. Khoury said that Bengal would be asking the commission to declare the Clarita well abandoned at its monthly meeting Oct. 25 in Fort Smith.

“If the cost to plug is in excess of the financial assurance amount, then we can and [will] take cost recovery steps, including lawsuits,” Khoury said in an e-mail Monday. “I hope that we can plug the well for $50,000 or less.”

Little Rock attorney Scott Poynter, who is representing several plaintiffs suing companies over damage caused by the earthquakes, said his clients dismissed Clarita from the suit.

He said that the suit for Clarita could be brought back depending on how the bankruptcy goes.

Clarita was dropped from the case in August, court records show.

“We did not want the impending bankruptcy stalling the case,” Poynter said. “Potentially, the plaintiffs could get money through the bankruptcy, but I haven’t reviewed the filing yet, so I can’t comment on that.”

Since the four wells were permanently shut down, the earthquakes have continued, according to information from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Since Oct. 2, at least 18 earthquakes have been recorded.

Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Friday that he believes the recent earthquakes are also related to the wells and that he expects the temblors to continue for a while.

Thompson said the continued quakes are evidence that more research should have been done before banning the wells.

“No s* the quakes have continued,” Thompson said. “Did anyone think those guys actually knew what they were talking about? They didn’t do a real scientific test. But this was never about science, it was always about politics.”

This article was published today at 4:24 a.m.
Business, Pages 23 on 10/18/2011
Business 23
about an hour ago · Like

Check this out: New Fault found in Arkansas, maybe a bigger sister to the New Madrid

reply to post by ButterCookie


Just what we don't need another fault that could produce a major quake, this is south of Forest City, east of Little Rock and closer to Memphis.

Originally posted by SusanFrey
reply to post by ButterCookie

 

Just what we don't need another fault that could produce a major quake, this is south of Forest City, east of Little Rock and closer to Memphis.

Closer to Memphis, you say?? ::

That is very interesting?? maybe that's the one from which memphis felt the tremors in Feburary.......

reply to post by ButterCookie


How about 57 miles to Forrest city from Memphis and 58 miles from Memphis on hwy US 79 or by I-40 it's 66,miles. And Marianna is 99 miles from Little Rock, so yeah it's closer to Memphis.

I don't recall seeing a thread specifically started for Fracking, so I thought I'd post here as this story adds to the topic of fracking and it is in an area where the fault line runs up the Ohio River Valley. Also, the maps from the Navy and others show that when the New Madrid goes, it could rip right through this area. So what harm will the fracking bring to this area??

This link shows of new fracking soon to start in the Ohio River Valley and ABC News has picked up the story.
ABC NEWS - OHIO RIVER VALLEY FRACKING

It seems that those in charge of the area are so desperate to bring work and employment back to this area that they are overlooking the serious consequences of fracking. Makes me wonder if they are doing this to intentionally cause the fault to rupture (thinkign out loud)??

reply to post by MountainEnigma


The jobs won't last forever it's only a short term fix and I agree the consequences are devastating.

MAP 2.1 2011/10/20 12:03:06 35.354 -92.268 6.0 5 km ( 3 mi) SW of Quitman, AR
MAP 2.3 2011/10/20 11:40:04 35.376 -92.243 0.1 2 km ( 1 mi) WSW of Quitman, AR
MAP 2.3 2011/10/20 10:45:04 35.363 -92.282 3.7 6 km ( 4 mi) WSW of Quitman, AR
MAP 2.4 2011/10/20 04:32:05 35.364 -92.291 3.7 6 km ( 4 mi) NE of Guy, AR
MAP 2.2 2011/10/20 00:25:52 35.356 -92.270 5.3 5 km ( 3 mi) WSW of Quitman, AR

reply to post by Robin Marks


is that related to the texas quake is something getting stirred up or is it just more fracking?

For those who might just be joining us, we have a resource bibliography for this thread. www.abovetopsecret.com...

Scroll to the half way mark down on the page. You will find a post that is the categories for all our references, and below that are two posts that are our bibliography. It has grown so much it takes two posts to get all the info in. Let me know in a U2U if there is a problem with any of the links. I review and post updates periodically, about every 25 pgs, to keep up with the additions as we progress

You will find all kinds of information! I came to this site because I am in the Ohio Valley region and would be affected when New Madrid decides to crack up.

Hope all is well with our regulars in this thread, and most welcome members who join us. Be sure to leave links to outside sources, easier for me to use in our references.

It's a great day, even if it is cold and dreary out!

reply to post by ur44lois


Fracking. Fracking. And more fracking. And they have 53 000 injection wells as well. It could be a natural quake. But the odds are against it. Because there are two activites in the area that cause quakes.

I may rant soon. I got a dousey.

Here's another link Sunflower Star.

www.therepublic.com...

I don't think it's posted yet.

I love you all. I would never want to cause you any worry or fear. Unless it was absolutely the only choice. I have a strange brain. I can sometimes comprehend the actual scale of things. It's hard to have a full picture, and it doesn't last very long because it's overwhelming. I wouldn't have said overwhelming if I could have found any other word.

I know one thing absolutely. Fracking is going to cause the disaster. There will be a new New Madrid at some point. Just somewhere else. I can't see how it wouldn't happen. When I try to think about all the production not having an effect. It's seems absolutely absurd and seems like only a question an innocent child would raise.
How can they not know?


My problem is that I'm 100% of the disaster. I'm always trying to find a way and let go. It's math.
Math.

53 000 injection wells in Texas. That is the tiniest tip of the ice berg. Now start adding in all the other regions where there's frackning. They're fracking near Yellowstone. Now the British Geological Society has admitted that fracking causes earthquakes. I could go on and go and on. Just try and put every fracking pad site in your mind and imagine the scale. You can't. I can only do it for a few seconds and I go out of my mind. Don't do it. It will hurt.

Just take care of yourselves.
Please

Environmental Protection Agency announces plans to regulate water from fracking

Environmentalists and even industry welcome an EPA proposal to regulate wastewater from hydraulic fracturing and other natural gas production from shale.

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-frack-water-20111021,0,6915863.story

reply to post by jjjtir


Is there any wonder why the Republicans want to kill the "job killing" EPA/
Nope.

Let's hope it happens.

Robin,

Have you read these? I am about to.....and sorry if they have been posted previously I have not went through the recent posts just yet to check. I am off to read them and will come back and see what your thoughts are.

Jenn

current.com...

www.abc24.com...