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posted by takyon on Wednesday June 12 2019, @09:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the energy-drain dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Catalog of north Texas earthquakes confirms continuing effects of wastewater disposal

In their report published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Louis Quinones and Heather DeShon of Southern Methodist University and colleagues confirm that seismicity rates in the basin have decreased since 2014, a trend that appears to correspond with a decrease in wastewater injection.

However, their analysis also notes that new faults have become active during this period, and that seismicity continues at a greater distance from injection wells over time, suggesting that "far-field" changes in seismic stress will be important for understanding the basin's future earthquake hazard potential.

"One thing we have come to appreciate is how broadly injection in the basin has modified stress within entire basin," said DeShon. The first thing researchers noted with wastewater injection into the basin "was the reactivation of individual faults," she added, "and what we're now starting to see is essentially the leftover energy on all sorts of little faults being released by the cumulative volume that's been put into the basin."

[...] The researchers found that overall seismicity in the Fort Worth Basin has been strongly correlated in time and space with wastewater injection activities, with most seismicity occurring within 15 kilometers of disposal wells.

Tracking Induced Seismicity in the Fort Worth Basin: A Summary of the 2008–2018 North Texas Earthquake Study Catalog [DOI: 10.1785/0120190057] [DX]


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday June 12 2019, @03:29PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @03:29PM (#854674) Journal

    Considering the clay in Texas already cracks people's foundations, probably not a whole lot.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:19PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:19PM (#855205) Journal

    As someone who lives in the DFW area, I can assure you the impact of wastewater injection earthquakes has, thus far, been so minimal as to be unnoticeable. The local news has made hardly a peep about it.

    For residences, concrete slab foundations at ground level are the custom in these parts. They don't build basements. The concrete slab is cheap and quick. And though it could be, it definitely is not engineered for the long term, or for the expansive clay soils. In dry summers, I've seen cracks in the soil open up to 2 inches wide. You can stick your foot in those, halfway to the ankle. It's a lucky homeowner who doesn't have cracks in the foundation after 15 years. I've always felt that standards ought to be raised. End this madness of every house eventually needing the services of a foundation repair company.

    No need to invoke wastewater injection and earthquakes, foundations have been cracking apart in Texas for decades before that started.