Oklahoma! Fracking earthquakes shake the state

America’s Center for Investigative Reporting noted recently that Oklahoma had 562 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater in 2014. This astonishing fact can have only one explanation. Earthquakes only began in 2009, when fracking began in the state.

Massive amounts of water, along with other fluids, are used in the fracking process to break rocks, release natural gas and push it to the surface. This water, along with injection chemicals and brine from the broken rocks, rises to the surface and has to go somewhere. So drillers pump it into underground ‘disposal wells’. The Oklahoma Geological Survey says that more than 50 billion gallons of waste water has been pumped into these disposal wells in 2013 alone.

Oklahoma, the report says, had pre-existing geologic faults that make it less stable than areas such as North Dakota, which is geologically more stable. So now they tell us. Bit late, guys.