A new study co-authored by UC Berkeley professor Michael Manga confirms that earthquakes in America’s oil country including a 4.8 magnitude quake that rocked Texas in 2012 are being triggered by significant injections of wastewater below the surface of the Earth. Shale gas drilling rig near Alvarado, Texas. Photo: David R. Tribble, CC While there has been plenty of speculation that the alarming increase in seismic activity in states like Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were a result of human activity, the study which appears in the journal Science fingers deep wastewater injections as the culprit. “The proximity of the earthquake clusters to the injection wells suggests a link between them,” researchers explain in the report. “As wastewater is injected into the disposal formation, it increases pore pressure within the system… The increase in pore pressure caused by the injection of fluids decreases the effective normal stress on faults, bringing them closer to failure.”
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