A one-year seismic hazard model for 2017, from the U.S. Geological Survey, forecasts lower damaging ground shaking levels in the central and eastern U.S. compared to the previous forecast, in areas where there have been numerous earthquakes induced by wastewater (salt-water) disposal from industrial (oil and gas) activities. Despite the recent drop in earthquake rates, Oklahoma and southern Kansas still face a significant risk of induced earthquake damage in 2017, according to the U.S.G.S. report published March 1 in the journal Seismological Research Letters.
For more than 3 million people in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, the chance of damage in the next year from induced earthquakes is similar to that of natural earthquakes in high-hazard areas of California, the report concludes. Ground shaking caused by a quake is considered damaging if it is strong enough to crack plaster and weak masonry. The 2017 forecast is the follow-up to a similar report in 2016, which was the first to consider seismic hazards from both induced and natural earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. over a one-year timeframe. USGS Mark Petersen and colleagues found that there were lower rates of earthquakes in 2016 compared to 2015 in five key areas ... Oklahoma-Kansas, the Raton Basin along the Colorado-New Mexico border, north Texas, north Arkansas, and the New Madrid seismic zone (which ruptures in natural earthquakes) extending from Illinois to Mississippi.
The decreased rate may be due to a decrease in wastewater injection from oil and gas production, the U.S.G.S. researchers noted. When wastewater produced by oil and gas production is returned to the ground, it creates changes in pressure along faults, unclamping them and allowing them to slip. Seismologists think that the volume of wastewater, along with the rate at which it is injected back into the ground, are important factors in whether an earthquake is triggered by the activity.
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