What is fracking?
Fracking, is the process of injecting “fracking fluid” into the Earth at very high pressures in order to break apart fissures and shale in order to allow for the extraction of oil or natural gas.
There are three basic steps to fracking:
- Drill a deep hole & install the well
- Inject “fracking fluid” at high pressure
- Collect the natural gas and/or oil that’s released
https://climatekids.nasa.gov/review/fossil-fuels-gas/fossilfuel-03.png
Fracking & Earthquakes
How could there be a correlation between fracking and earthquakes? It doesn’t surprise me that not many people know about their relationship, especially when many only know fracking as a buzzword. In reality, the relationship is caused by the “waste water” that fracking and other oil/gas extraction methods create as a byproduct. The “waste water” is a mix of highly toxic chemicals, shale, and water that is produced during the extraction process and then pumped back into the ground near the fracking location. Under certain conditions, that is how fracking causes earthquakes. If the “waste water” is injected too fast, at too high a volume, in the presence of a fault that is stressed, and there are pathways that connect the injection point and the fault– the waste water induces earthquakes.
Source: USGS, https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/earthquake-hazards/induced-earthquakes
The Evidence
The Permian Basin
The largest oil producing region in the United States is Texas’ Permian Basin. For several years now this region of Texas that reaches into Southeastern New Mexico has been the epicenter of the U.S. energy rally that has led us to being the number 1 oil producing country on the planet.
Given the growth of oil production and fracking for natural gas in this region I decided to run an analysis to see if the frequency of Earthquakes in this region also increased over the same timespan. To do so, I used the following R libraries as well as the USGS Earthquake API.
library(sf)
library(tidyverse)
library(stringr)
library(RCurl)
library(raster)
library(tmap)
library(base)
library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)
library(lubridate)
library(gganimate)
library(simtimer)
library(NLP)
library(transformr)
library(RColorBrewer)I filtered the USGS API for all Earthquakes that happened from January 1st, 2000 through January 1st, 2019 in the Permian Basin and removed the micro-earthquakes (low enough magnitude as to not be perceptible to humans). I then animated a map where each frame correlates to a year and the color of the dot indicates the magnitude of the earthquake.
As you can see, the growth in the frequency of earthquakes aligns with the trend in the increasing amount of oil this region produces.
Oklahoma
To further my analysis I looked at another hugely significant oil producing region in the United States: Oklahoma, which has seen an explosion in its oil production since around 2010.
I did the same process for Oklahoma as I had done for Texas and analyzed the earthquake data from the beginning of 2000 until the beginning of 2019. The results, this time around, were astounding.
The correlation between fracking and earthquakes is irrefutable and the fact that Oklahoma now has a higher number of earthquakes per year (on average) than California is astonishing.
“Nine months after a National Academy of Sciences panel said oil and gas regulators should take steps to prevent man-made earthquakes, officials in key states are ignoring quake potential as they rewrite their drilling rules.”
Mike Soraghan, E&E Reporter
The Solution
Oil and natural gas obviously have problems seeing as they are some of the most used fossil fuels on the planet. To my mind, and to that of many others the best solution is also the most simple, overhaul our energy infrastructure with an aggressive shift to renewable energies. The reasons in-favor of doing so seem to be the ones that align with the “right side of history.” But in terms of fracking-induced earthquakes there are crucial issues that should be addressed even sooner than a green-new deal could appear. Just like many other environmentally damaging or dangerous projects, fracking tends to occur in areas that are living close-to or under the poverty line and are majority communities of color.
To keep communities safe and educated about the potential dangers risked by fracking near residential areas, I propose the following solutions:
- Regulate “waste water” management to control injection rates and volumes
- Educate local communities about the correlation between fracking and earthquakes
- Require oil companies to fund the retrofitting of unsafe infrastructure in areas where they’re expanding their operations
- Ban Fracking
By: Lucas Springer
Lucas Springer's Blog 
