SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the not-proof,-but-quite-a-coincidence dept.
The central US state of Oklahoma has gone from registering two earthquakes a year to nearly two a day and scientists point to a controversial culprit: wastewater injection wells used in fracking.
Located in the middle of the country, far from any major fault lines, Oklahoma experienced 585 earthquakes of a magnitude of 3.0 or greater in 2014. That's more than three times as many as the 180 which hit California last year.
"It's completely unprecedented," said George Choy, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey.
As of last month, Oklahoma has already experienced more than 600 quakes strong enough to rattle windows and rock cars. The biggest was a 4.5-magnitude quake that hit the small town of Crescent.
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-state-quakes-year.html
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1) by Squidious on Saturday September 26 2015, @02:19PM
Awesome! Can we do some of that fracking around the Yellowstone Caldera? I hear there is lots of methane there.
BA-BOOOOM!
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes. The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
The terrorists have won, game, set, match. They've scared the people into electing authoritarian regimes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2015, @04:46PM
Fracking shall be the mother of the apocalypse.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday September 26 2015, @09:49PM
"Hey Boo-Boom, I hear there's some valuable methane in these here frack-a-nic baskets."
"Gee, Yogi, both the Sierra Club and the USGS are already not happy with us, maybe we should just leave them alone."
"Nonsense, my dear chum. What could possibly go wrong?"