
Drilling Reawakens Sleeping Faults in Texas, Leads to Earthquakes - JJLongusa
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drilling-reawakens-sleeping-faults-in-texas-leads-to-earthquakes/
======
booblik
In a state where many believe the Earth is 6000 years old, a study that claims
the faults haven’t moved for 300,000,000 years will be taken with a grain of
salt, and a ton of religious fury.

~~~
adrianmonk
I grew up in the area. I'm sure some of that will happen, but it is also
BLATANTLY obvious to the people living there that something has changed. I
have relatives that have lived in the area for 70+ years who had never
experienced a single earthquake ever until less than 10 years ago, and now
suddenly there are earthquakes once a month or more. They know something is
up, and whatever their religious beliefs, they also know it started happening
at the same time as the fracking equipment rolled in.

------
barney54
This heading (and the heading of the article itself) are wrong. If you read
the article it is not that "drilling" reawakens sleeping faults, but that deep
injection wells do. Deep injection wells are one way to dispose of produced
water from oil and gas production.

So it's not "drilling" that is at issue, but injecting water for disposal that
awaken faults.

~~~
gtvwill
Actually there are only two major methods of drilling both include injection
of a product. For core drilling you inject water/"mud" to remove cuttings and
for RC you use air pressure to remove cuttings. Injection is intrinsic to
drilling. I'm yet to hear of a deep hole rig that doesn't use injection.

So yes it is the drilling that is the problem.

Note: I worked on drill rigs for half a year punching holes to 1.6km.

~~~
freefal67
The science to date has linked the quakes to deep salt water disposal wells
lubricating faults. These wells are taking flowback and produced water from
oil wells once they are put on production. The earthquake phenomenon is not
related to circulating "mud" during drilling.

~~~
gtvwill
No doubt the science has linked that to it, but you also regularly fill faults
whilst drilling for core or hell even when drilling water bore holes. If the
grounds crap you just pump mud with some additives in till the holes are
blocked or your at least retain some pressure. I'm gonna throw it out there
also, having worked amongst it most drillers/holes that are drilled...we know
piss all about whats going on down there. Hell we had one hole that was
LITERALLY within 50m of the side wall of an open cut mine, we drilled down
past the open cuts depth from surface because our targets were for next to
segments of the underground mine that went off the open cut. We lost water
pressure/return for a good week, had to cart loads in and mix it plenty thick
to try and plug the hole. Few weeks into the job, the other offsider went for
a walk in a direction we didn't usually go for a piss, about 100m away he came
across all our drilling fluid forming a small lake in the windrows above the
open cut. Geologists had no clue why it had happened or why we had lost water
in the first place leading up to that discovery.

The point is, drilling sure as shit isn't an exact science, you should
probably be more skeptical about its effects than not. Most drillers aren't
some highly educated academic that knows exactly whats going on down
hole...most of them have been hired because they have the mechanical aptitude
to fix just about anything that can go wrong with a rig or have the
perseverance to push through the horrible conditions, both above ground and
down hole to get the job done. Drilling be it through the process itself or
the result of its action definitely plays a role in the problem.

------
mc32
Since science is now establishing a connection between drilling (or rather
reinjection) and quakes, these outfits ought to be required to buy EQ
insurance before they are allowed to drill, but enough to cover all
restitution costs.

~~~
sokoloff
How do you determine that _that specific_ earthquake was directly caused by
reinjection? Is it possible that reinjection is creating more frequent,
smaller quakes, and avoiding stress buildup that would be released as a larger
quake later? Do they get credit against the latter for the former? Is there an
amount of earthquake insurance available commercially to cover "all
restitution costs"?

~~~
mc32
You don't. It's a general fund paid in by all operators in an area. The funds
should be sufficient to cover necessary indemnification.

Sure, the small quakes likely are relieving bigger ones tens of thousands of
years hence, so we don't care about that.

The rules would be, you want to drill and re-inject to make some money, make
sure it's profitable enough that you can pay into an EQ indemnification fund.
Actuaries would set rates.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I agree with this. The model would be the US Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund.
The idea is all drillers pay an excise tax into a fund, and this fund acts as
insurance for anyone who can show damages by an earthquake in a drilling area.

------
spodek
We seem to plunder the environment until it kills us.

~~~
icelancer
Humans aren't the first to do this by a long shot. Animals of all other sorts
do it in a rush to exploit resources. It's just how we work.

------
mtgx
RICO investigation 10 years from now when we'll found out that the execs knew
they were causing earthquakes, but continued to deceive the public?

~~~
jjeaff
And what exactly will the damage claim amount to? I'm yet to find any evidence
in reporting regarding any actual damage beyond some small cracks and broken
plates.

~~~
mrgordon
In areas with heavy fracking (e.g. northern Pennsylvania around Dimock) there
are trucks from companies like GeoKinetics and Halliburton everywhere and they
are purposely trying to create mini earthquakes to get access to the shale. It
is pretty common knowledge that there have been more tremors and seismic
activity since fracking started. As far as damage reports go, the gas
companies (and I assume also the oil companies) ensure every settlement
includes a nondisclosure agreement so that no one can talk about the damage if
they want money. This is why so many homes no longer have safe drinking water,
many people have fallen ill from cancers and similar ailments, and yet there
is almost no reporting on it.

Source: I ran a site for a while where people posted images and stories of how
natural gas drilling had ruined their lives or caused environmental harm. We
would try to get as much info from people as we could before they signed the
NDAs for the settlement money and never talked about it again

~~~
mrgordon
Ah looks like the lobbyists came to share some downvotes for information they
didn’t like (or maybe a normal user from oil country?)

I can’t imagine why someone would downvote factual information that adds to
the discussion. The downvote option wasn’t added so people could hide comments
they disagree with. I’ve personally met dozens of people who’ve signed NDAs
with natural gas companies but live in denial if you insist.

~~~
pickledpeppers
Original downvotes possibly because your source is your interpretation of
information collected from laypeople who were about to take money for silence.
That's not strong evidence.

Further downvotes likely because your tone is defensive and you throw around
wild accusations.

In other words, you presented weak evidence then violated community norms in
responding.

However, I would love to check out your site, to see if there's useful
information regarding this thread on it. Can you share a URL?

------
exabrial
Wrong title. Poor management of salt-water injection, NOT drilling, fracking,
et all, may lubricate certain types of fault lines in sedimentary deposits.

Part of the problem is the Obama-era EPA did not allow companies to write off
dry-holes, leading to a shortage of wells that can be used for salt-water
injection. This put a stress on the existing injection infrastructure.

~~~
wavefunction
Would there be any salt-water injection without drilling for petroleum or
natural gas?

One follows the other.

~~~
petre
Also for extracting geothermal energy, but this is usually done in more active
areas.

