Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin Declares State of Emergency Due to Earthquakes

Look into the Rock Mountain Arsenal quakes caused by ther deep injection well:

There is definitely historical precedence for manmade causes of earthquakes in Colorado.

"This state is the biggest natural laboratory in the world for human-induced earthquakes," Matthews said. "There have been three major experiments in the state concerning human-induced events that prove human activities can indeed touch off earthquakes."

And a bit further down:

Over 1,300 earthquakes were recorded between January 1963 and August 1967. In April 1967 the largest earthquake since the series began in 1962 occurred, and damage was recorded in the arsenal, Derby and Boulder. This tremor measured 5.0 on the Richter scale.

Even after the Rocky Mountain Arsenal waste dumping practice stopped, earthquakes continued to be felt in the Denver area, so in 1968 the Army began removing fluid from the arsenal well very slowly in an effort to reduce the earthquake activity.

December 2001 article

And from a more recent article:

On November 5, an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois.

Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state.

Why?

In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state.

Cause and effect?

The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.

A little later in the same article:

According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, "Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?" the agency notes, "Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada.

The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established."

Note the phrase, "Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established."

So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over 50 years of research confirm on a federal level that that "fluid injection" introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity." How about "causing significant seismic events?"

Seems self evident to me, but what do I know?

I live in Oklahoma, probably about 50 from the epicenter, and have felt 3 of the largest ones since Saturday morning, been a resident here in the state for close to 40 years and never felt anything like that here before. I've lived 30 miles from Fort Sill and 10 miles from the Meer's fault, and I remember when Fort Sill would be shelling, it would rattle the windows and be rumbling all times of the day, and it didn't phase us a bit.

For me and my family it's been a little on the "WTH" the past few days. Our kids have been rattled by it, especially by the one on Sunday night, tornado watch, severe storm coming through, wind, hail, heavy rain, thunder and lightning, then an earthquake!

I've read many of the articles on fracking, seems in the least, that it's aiding in some of the movements. Sort of like in the movies or cartoons, when the car is hanging off a cliff and bird lands on the end and the car goes off the edge.

As for the state wide emergency? I haven't heard about it, too busy with work and life today. But there are a quite a lot of old bridges on county roads and railways around here, plus in the construction of a lot of structures, the word earthquake probably was never near the scope of work or any building code, not in Oklahoma.

When I got a new insurance policy this past year, we were covering perils, and strangely enough earthquakes came up, me and the agent looked at each other like, riiiiigght.....

More EQ's to come?

"Total SA (FP), France’s largest oil and gas producer, may buy a stake in Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK)’s holdings in Ohio’s Utica shale, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Total is considering the acquisition, the person said, declining to be named before a final decision is made. Chesapeake said on Nov. 3 it had signed a letter of intent with an unidentified international oil company for a $2.14 billion deal to sell 25 percent of 570,000 acres of Ohio’s Utica shale. "

www.bloomberg.com...

Rainbows
Jane