Oil and gas industry is causing Texas earthquakes, a 'landmark' study suggests

In the past decade, an unnatural earthquake occurred in Texas, and the seismic activity in this area is increasing. In 2008, two earthquakes exceeding level 3 hit the nation. Eight years later, 12 people did.

The power of nature causes most earthquakes. However, humans are causing earthquakes, the largest being mine and dam construction.

A new study reports that an artificial earthquake in Texas dating back to the early days of the oil and gas industry. The first human-induced earthquake occurred in Goose Creek oil field off the Gulf Coast in eastern Houston in 1925. As a pioneer of ExxonMobil, Humble Oil extracted a lot of oil, the ground sank, the house oscillated, and the dishes hit the floor. Over the years, various oil production methods are causing earthquakes, such as promoting oil and gas mining and supply of carbon dioxide to petroleum and oil reservoirs. In rare cases, the fault pressure may increase or decrease in each way and rupture may occur.

Published research has shown that human activities can cause earthquakes for a long time. Such seismic induction processes include fluid injection for improving oil recovery, solution mining, hydraulic crushing, geothermal stimulation, and treatment of effluents from industrial or petroleum and gas operations. Fluid injected into a deep well will substantially increase the underpressure pressure to overcome the frictional resistance, especially if the crustal stress is large, approaching fracture, the crystalline basement rock near the injection site Of the crushed layer of the material.

Sera is well aware of the environmental risks of oil and gas excavation, especially hydraulic crushing. They experienced some moderate earthquakes, which is not due to hydraulic fracture, but for injection wells. His support for the oil and gas industry has caused problems for environmental groups. However, he feels that economic interests are greater than environmental risk. These views made him "a problem of our own core group". But he said it was difficult to find a work of high salary and it was necessary to replace the work of lost coal and steel.

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