… making earthquakes more likely …

A study funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey confirms that injecting fluid underground can increase pressure on seismic faults and make them more likely to slip. The result is called an ‘induced’ quake. Nicholas van der Elst of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, who led the study, said, ‘The fluids [in wastewater injection wells] are driving the faults to their tipping point.’ Seismologists at Columbia University say they have identified three quakes – in Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas – that were triggered at injection-well sites by a major earthquake a long distance away.