Earthquakes and Fracking connection

I see this headline today and start thinking about possibility of man made causes. I don't think we know enough and we should understand this much better before we just go hog wild on shooting undetermined (company secrets) chemicals into the earth.

5.6-magnitude quake rattles Oklahoma

Oklahomans more accustomed to tornadoes than earthquakes suffered through a weekend of temblors that cracked buildings, buckled a highway and rattled nerves. One jolting quake late Saturday was the state's strongest ever and shook a college football stadium 50 miles away while another of lesser intensity struck before dawn Sunday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/sto ... 51080246/1

USGS Report
Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma
http://www.ogs.ou.edu/pubsscanned/openfile/OF1_2011.pdf

and then I stumbled across this:
When two small earthquakes struck near Blackpool, England in April and May, suspicious eyes turned toward the hydraulic fracturing operation in the area. In a move few expected, Cuadrilla Resources, admitted that its shale fracking operations were indeed responsible.

PRESS RELEASE NOVEMBER 2011
Cuadrilla Resources, the British company exploring for natural shale gas in the Bowland Basin in Lancashire, has today released the findings of the report that was
commissioned following unusual seismic activity near Poulton-le-Fylde in April and May 2011.

http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/cms/w ... -11-11.pdf

It's definately fracken scary to be in a shaker.

Doesn't appear to be connected. AP just came out with a story saying earthquake experts said the strongest quake was about 16,000 times more powerful than those caused from drilling/fracking.

More quakes, including a 4.7 this evening...

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 90_eqs.php

why do people think we can do whatever we want to mother earth and she won't fight back? Fracking takes place deep into the earth, a couple miles at least, and no one thinks that just might have an effect on what goes on around it? Change the earth enough and bad things are bound to happen

Martin Ent Inc wrote: It's definately fracken scary to be in a shaker.

rofllol

Unless the frac jobs takes place at or very near a fault it is unreasonable to draw a relationship to a major earthquake. Fracturing a formation involves overpressuring the rocks at depth to crack the rock and simultaneously inserting sand to keep the fractures generated open. The invasion of the country rock away from the well bore reaches a maximum of about 1km if everything works really well. More often than not, it is far less and in some cases nothing at all. If well fracturing is near a fault and the induced fractures run as far as the fault, it is possible to inject fluid into the fracture, thereby lubricating it, reducing the friction that hold it in place and allowing release of whatever stress the fracture is under through minor movement. Something similar happened in Colorado quite a few years ago in relation to an injection well that intersected a fault. It took a lot of injected fluids to activate the fault and that is when it was realized that man could reactive long dormant faults. The significance of this is that it took prolonged water injection to have that happen in a well that intersected a fault. Frac jobs normally are not near a fault and inject a miniscule fraction of the fluids that by contrast were injected in Colorado before anything happened. Having said all that, while the information and understanding of the geologic processes we have cast considerable doubt about creating a mag 5 earthquake, it's always good to keep one's mind open to new insights that could revise our thinking.

It could also be related to the draining of the Ogalla aquifier. When they drain the ground water in Florida it makes sinkholes. And in Holland, continuous pumping of water to prevent flooding has moved the country even further under sea level.

I'll look at fracking as a possible cause of earthquakes until the earthquake experts can unequivocably predict with 100% accuracy when an earthquake will occur.

thanks Franz, I agree, we need to continually learn and form opinions as more information is available. Entrenching without facts is not a good way to move forward.