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A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck Saturday morning near Pawnee, Oklahoma, rattling through at least six surrounding states in the US heartland, according to the US Geological Survey.
takyon: The story has been updated to note:
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is telling operators to shut down 35 disposal wells that may have played a role in a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that shook at least six states Saturday, Gov. Mary Fallin said. The disposal wells, which are linked to fracking and other industries that need to dispose of toxic waste water by injecting it deep into the earth, have recently drawn concern that they may actually induce earthquakes.
USGS: M5.6 - 15km NW of Pawnee, Oklahoma
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Oklahoma Earthquake Rattles Six Surrounding States; Fracking Disposal Wells Closed
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/* Halley */
(Halley's comment.)
(Score: 2) by Techwolf on Monday September 05 2016, @02:16PM
If this is the cause of the earthquakes, much rather have a bunch of small ones then one big one that levels everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 05 2016, @02:28PM
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. The amount of energy released in small quakes is order(s) of magnitude less than the energy released in a big quake. In other words, the big quake will happen anyway. Source [usgs.gov], about half way down the page.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 05 2016, @03:46PM
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. The amount of energy released in small quakes is order(s) of magnitude less than the energy released in a big quake. In other words, the big quake will happen anyway. Source, about half way down the page.
Actually it does partially work that way. The earthquake swarms in question have an unusual distribution where the frequency of the earthquake is roughly inversely proportional to the energy of the earthquake. So for example, magnitude 3-4 earthquakes in Oklahoma collectively tend to release as much energy as magnitude 4-5 earthquakes and as magnitude 5-6. Here, there have been roughly 1500 earthquakes [usgs.gov] in the years 2013-2015 that were magnitude 3+; 48 earthquakes [koco.com] that were magnitude 4+, and 2 that were magnitude 5+. Notice that the drop in earthquake frequency between the first two ranges is roughly 33 which is also roughly the increase in energy by increasing the magnitude of an earthquake by 1.
While this does indicate that large earthquakes are much more uncommon relative to normal earthquake producing faults (where a drop in frequency of 10 per unit increase in magnitude is common), it still indicates to me that that these earthquakes are following a Poisson-type distribution and in particularly, can produce larger earthquakes than have been seen to date though at considerably reduced frequency. That plus the considerable increase in earthquakes over the past few years indicates to me that we do have risk of larger earthquakes and should take measures to reduce that likelihood.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @09:27AM
From the link:
It would take 32 magnitude 5's, 1000 magnitude 4's, OR 32,000 magnitude 3's to equal the energy of one magnitude 6 event. So, even though we always record many more small events than large ones, there are far too few to eliminate the need for the occasional large earthquake.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 06 2016, @03:20PM