Fracking Earthquakes Confirmed (Again) in Ohio
by Kevin Samson
Activist Post
There has been an ongoing battle between researchers and the natural gas and oil industries over whether or not hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is definitively leading to an increase in earthquake activity.
Ohio is already on the map as one of the In an article entitled “Oklahoma Breaking Records For Earthquake Activity – Fracking?” I presented evidence from the U.S. Army, U.S. Geological Survey, the Oklahoma Geological Survey and the Geological Society of America, which suggests that it is becoming conclusive that fracking causes earthquakes. Furthermore, studies also indicate that even when fracking is halted, earthquake activity can continue and earthquake magnitude can increase over time.
6 states where earthquakes are a new feature of reality. And it’s one state where mainstream geologists and seismologists are now confirming the link between fracking and earthquakes that we have been suspecting all along.
Earlier this year even the Associated Press had to report that:
Geologists in Ohio have for the first time linked earthquakes in a geologic formation deep under the Appalachians to hydraulic fracturing, leading the state to issue new permit conditions Friday in certain areas that are among the nation’s strictest.
[…]
While earlier studies had linked earthquakes in the same region to deep-injection wells used for disposal of fracking wastewater, this marks the first time tremors in the region have been tied directly to fracking, Simmers said. The five seismic events in March couldn’t be easily felt by people.
[…]
Glenda Besana-Ostman, a former seismologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources,
confirmed the finding is the first in the area to suggest a connection between the quakes and fracking. A deep-injection wastewater well in the same region of Ohio was found to be the likely cause of a series of quakes in 2012.
(emphasis added)
These findings resulted in tentative action being taken in Ohio that included an indefinite moratorium on drilling at the affected site.
Now a new study appearing in Seismological Research Letters confirms that 400 small earthquakes were triggered in 2013 along a previously unmapped fault in Harrison County, Ohio, marking the first recorded seismic activity in the area.