Another Industry Reported Quake in BC's Fracking Grounds

Progress Energy, an arm of the Malaysian oil company Petronas, temporarily shut down operations at a wellsite after a 4.5 magnitude earthquake hit an area 114 kilometres northwest of Fort St. John on Aug. 17.

B.C.'s oil and gas regulator said the earthquake was likely caused by hydraulic fracturing but "has yet to determine the cause of the event." Progress Energy reported the tremor on Monday. No damages were reported to the regulator.

More Industry Linked Earthquakes Recorded in Alberta

More industry-linked earthquakes have shaken up Alberta's oil and gas fields in recent weeks from Fox Creek to Peace River, say experts and regulators.

In Fox Creek, Alberta, where industry triggered a 4.4 magnitude earthquake, a company fracking in the Duvernay Formation has reported more tremors.

"On May 28, an operator in the Fox Creek area reported two seismic events, of a magnitude 2.2 and 2.1 respectively," confirmed Ryan Bartlett, a spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Frustration for Canadians seeking help following Nepal earthquake

Canadians in Nepal and relatives of missing Canadian tourists are expressing frustration with Canada's response to Saturday's massive earthquake, with some complaining they're getting more support from American officials than their own.

Mark McDermott and Roel Teunissen were hoping to get on a military transport plane on Wednesday to return to Canada from the earthquake-ravaged country.

Fracking-induced earthquake puts B.C. gas bonanza on shaky ground

The small town of Fox Creek in northern Alberta may have broken the world’s ‘fracking earthquake’ record with the 4.4-magnitude shaker that hit last month.

The most probable cause, according to Alberta’s energy regulator, was nearby gas fracking operations. The recent quake  was on many people's mind as they listened to a presentation in Ottawa on the shale gas "bonanza" happening across North America today. 

Fracking Industry Shakes Up Northern BC with 231 Tremors

British Columbia's shale gas fracking industry triggered more than 231 earthquakes or ''seismic events'' in northeastern British Columbia between Aug. 2013 and Oct. 2014.

Some of the quakes were severe enough to ''experience a few seconds of shaking'' on the ground in seven areas of the province on top of the large Montney shale gas basin.

The events, many of which occurred in clusters or swarms, showed that the regulation of the industry still lags behind the pace of drilling activity in the region.

''Induced seismicity related to wastewater disposal and hydraulic fracturing within the Montney (a 29,850 square-kilometre underground siltstone formation) indicates a more uniform application of regulations is appropriate,'' concluded a December report by the BC Oil and Gas Commission.

Fracking Linked To Alberta Earthquakes, Study Indicates

Carmen Langer had just left his bed to grab a drink of water when he felt his house northeast of Peace River, Alta., begin to shake.

“At first I thought I wasn’t feeling very good that day... and it was just my blood sugar, but no, it shook pretty good,” Langer said about the Nov. 2 incident.

Moments after the shaking stopped, his neighbours were calling, asking if he had felt what they just felt.

Scientists Find ‘Direct Link’ Between Earthquakes And Process Used For Oil And Gas Drilling

A team of scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have found evidence “directly linking” the uptick in Colorado and New Mexico earthquakes since 2001 to wastewater injection, a process widely used in the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and conventional drilling.

In a study to be published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America on Tuesday, the scientists presented “several lines of evidence [that] suggest the earthquakes in the area are directly related to the disposal of wastewater” deep underground, according to a BSSA press release. Fracking and conventional natural gas companies routinely dispose of large amounts of wastewater underground after drilling. During fracking, the water is mixed with chemicals and sand, to “fracture” underground shale rock formations and make gas easier to extract.

Fracking Linked To Earthquakes In Ohio, New Permit Conditions Issued

COLUMBUS, Ohio - State geologists in Ohio have for the first time linked earthquakes in a geologic formation deep under the Appalachians to gas drilling, leading the state to issue new permit conditions in certain areas that are among the nation's strictest.

A state investigation of five small tremors in the Youngstown area, in the Appalachian foothills, last month has found the high-pressure injection of sand and water that accompanies hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the Utica Shale may have increased pressure on a small, unknown fault, said State Oil & Gas Chief Rick Simmers. He called the link "probable."

Confirmed: Fracking Triggers Quakes and Seismic Chaos

Major earthquakes thousands of miles away can trigger reflex quakes in areas where fluids have been injected into the ground from fracking and other industrial operations, according to a study published in the journal Science on Thursday.

Previous studies, covered in a recent Mother Jones feature from Michael Behar, have shown that injecting fluids into the ground can increase the seismicity of a region. This latest study shows that earthquakes can tip off smaller quakes in far-away areas where fluid has been pumped underground.

Fracking's Latest Scandal? Earthquake Swarms

At exactly 10:53 p.m. on Saturday, November 5, 2011, Joe and Mary Reneau were in the bedroom of their whitewashed and brick-trimmed home, a two-story rambler Mary's dad custom-built 43 years ago. Their property encompasses 440 acres of rolling grasslands in Prague, Oklahoma (population 2,400), located 50 miles east of Oklahoma City. When I arrive at their ranch almost a year later on a bright fall morning, Joe is wearing a short-sleeve shirt and jeans held up by navy blue suspenders, and is wedged into a metal chair on his front stoop sipping black coffee from a heavy mug. His German shepherd, Shotzie, is curled at his feet. Joe greets me with a crushing handshake—he is 200 pounds, silver-haired and 6 feet tall, with thick forearms and meaty hands—and invites me inside. He served in Vietnam, did two tours totaling nine years with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and then, in 1984, retired a lieutenant colonel from the US Army to sell real estate and raise cattle. Today, the livestock are gone and Joe calls himself "semiretired" because "we still cut hay in the summers."

Spain Earthquake, Drilling Wells Linked In New Study Of Lorca Tragedy

MADRID (AP) — Farmers drilling ever deeper wells over decades to water their crops likely contributed to a deadly earthquake in southern Spain last year, a new study suggests. The findings may add to concerns about the effects of new energy extraction and waste disposal technologies.

Nine people died and nearly 300 were injured when an unusually shallow magnitude-5.1 quake hit the town of Lorca on May 11, 2011. It was the country's worst quake in more than 50 years, causing millions of euros in damage to a region with an already fragile economy.

Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?

There are plenty of reasons to worry about fracking—groundwater contamination, methane leaks, that flaming tap water thing. But can it really cause earthquakes? That's the question the US Geological Survey set out to answer after a spate of tremors in the Midwest—an area not usually known for earthquakes—alerted scientists to the possibility that some of them might be man-made.

Seismic activity in the Midwest started increasing around 12 years ago but picked up significantly in the past few years, says seismologist Bill Ellsworth, the lead author of a new USGS study examining potential links between fracking and earthquakes in the region. Since 1970, the baseline for earthquakes in the Midwest measuring above a 3.0 hovered at around 21 per year, but beginning in 2001, that number began to rise. There's been a "remarkable increase" in the past few years: The number of 3.0-plus earthquakes rose from 29 in 2008 to 50 in 2009, then to 87 in 2010, and in 2011 to a staggering 134. Something unusual was going on, but what? As Ellsworth and his colleagues at USGS ask in the study, "Is this increase natural or manmade?" And if it's man-made, is fracking—which has ramped up in the region in the past several years—to blame?

Could oilpatch drilling be triggering earthquakes?

CALGARY — Provincial regulators and petroleum producers in Western Canada are waiting on the results of several studies looking into possible links between industry activity and an increase in minor earthquakes.

While Alberta has increased the number of earthquake monitoring devices across the province to better understand seismic activity over the past decade, British Columbia will be releasing a study this summer on possible links between seismic activity and drilling.

More immediately, a new study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey points to an "unprecedented" spike in mini-earthquake activity around areas of intense oil and gas production.

The activity is related to injection of wastewater into deep wells and not hydraulic fracturing activities, said co-author William Ellsworth.

"What we found is that there are earthquakes in association with locations where wastewater is being disposed of underground," Ellsworth said in an interview with CNBC. "This is not news; we've known about this for decades that under certain conditions it's possible to trigger earthquakes by pumping fluids underground."

Fracking Blamed for Ohio Earthquakes

A series of Ohio earthquakes is being blamed on fracking.

The area around Youngstown, in the state’s northeast corner, has seen 11 minor quakes in recent months, the Associated Press reports. The last was a 4.0 on New Year’s Eve that reportedly was felt as far away as Buffalo.

The AP cites a seismologist who says the quakes were almost certainly caused by operations at an injection well used for the disposal of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing operations. The state has temporarily closed that well and others nearby.

The theory is that when the wastewater is shot back into the ground, it can slip into cracks along a fault line and “act like a hydraulic jack” to trigger quakes, the Christian Science Monitor explains.

The quakes could continue for up to a year even after the well is closed, the AP’s expert warns.

Ohio Earthquakes Caused By Drilling Wastewater Well, Expert Says

CLEVELAND -- A northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seismologist investigating the quakes said Monday.

Research is continuing on the now-shuttered injection well at Youngstown and seismic activity, but it might take a year for the wastewater-related rumblings in the earth to dissipate, said John Armbruster of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

Brine wastewater dumped in wells comes from drilling operations, including the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale that has been a source of concern among environmental groups and some property owners. Injection wells have also been suspected in quakes in Ashtabula in far northeast Ohio, and in Arkansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma, Armbruster said.

Thousands of gallons of brine were injected daily into the Youngstown well that opened in 2010 until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Friday to stop injecting the waste into the earth as a precaution while authorities assessed any potential links to the quakes.

Fracking wastewater might have caused Ohio quake

Officials said Saturday they believe the latest earthquake activity in northeast Ohio is related to the injection of wastewater into the ground near a fault line, creating enough pressure to cause seismic activity.

The brine wastewater comes from drilling operations that use the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale. But Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer said during a news teleconference that fracking is not causing the quakes.

“The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking,” he said.

Environmentalists and property owners who live near gas drilling wells have questioned the safety of fracking to the environment and public health. Federal regulators have declared the technology safe, however.

Mr. Zehringer said four injection wells within a five-mile radius of an already shuttered well in Youngstown, Ohio will remain inactive while further scientific research is conducted.

A 4.0 magnitude quake Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in area, many of which have struck near the Youngstown injection well. The quake caused no serious injuries or property damage, Mr. Zehringer said.