Publication Date:
2014-07-06
Description:
Unconventional oil and gas production provides a rapidly growing energy source; however, high-production states in the United States, such as Oklahoma, face sharply rising numbers of earthquakes. Subsurface pressure data required to unequivocally link earthquakes to wastewater injection are rarely accessible. Here we use seismicity and hydrogeological models to show that fluid migration from high-rate disposal wells in Oklahoma is potentially responsible for the largest swarm. Earthquake hypocenters occur within disposal formations and upper basement, between 2- and 5-kilometer depth. The modeled fluid pressure perturbation propagates throughout the same depth range and tracks earthquakes to distances of 35 kilometers, with a triggering threshold of ~0.07 megapascals. Although thousands of disposal wells operate aseismically, four of the highest-rate wells are capable of inducing 20% of 2008 to 2013 central U.S. seismicity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Keranen, K M -- Weingarten, M -- Abers, G A -- Bekins, B A -- Ge, S -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jul 25;345(6195):448-51. doi: 10.1126/science.1255802. Epub 2014 Jul 3.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. keranen@cornell.edu. ; Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. ; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA. ; U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24993347" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Earthquakes/*statistics & numerical data
;
Models, Theoretical
;
*Oil and Gas Fields
;
Oklahoma
;
Waste Water/*statistics & numerical data
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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