KTRK reported in 2020 that another earthquake shook parts of far west Texas overnight. A 3.2 magnitude quake was detected just before midnight near Mentone in Loving County. There have been no damage reports from the event, which was estimated to have originated at a depth of 3.1 miles below the earth's surface. West Texas reports more earthquakes than any other part of the state.
The Texas Tribune reports west Texas has seen a dramatic increase in earthquakes, jumping from 19 in 2009 to 1,600 in 2017 alone, according to a study published by the University of Texas at Austin. The study, which was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, tracked nearly 20 years of seismic activity. The scientists documented more than 7,000 earthquakes near Pecos starting in 2009, most of them so small that no one felt them. The scientists used an earthquake monitoring system that was "some distance" from Pecos but sensitive enough to pick up vibrations 150 miles away.
"West Texas now has the highest seismicity rates in the state," co-author and Southern Methodist University Associate Professor Heather DeShon said in a written statement. "What remained uncertain is when the earthquakes actually started. This study addresses that." While earthquake activity coincided with a large increase in oil and gas production in west Texas, the study does not try to link the two.
The research lays the groundwork to understand "the relationship between earthquakes and their human and natural causes," Peter Hennings, the study's co-author and a research scientist at the UT Bureau of Economic Geology, said in a written statement. West Texas has seen oil and gas production increase at unprecedented rates, aggravating air pollution and leading to a housing crunch, according to a 2018 joint investigation by The Texas Tribune and Center for Public Integrity.
But earlier in the year, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that a Magnitude 5.0 earthquake occurred in west Texas as the result of shallow normal faulting about 40 km west of the town of Mentone, Texas. The earthquake occurred within the interior of the North America plate, far from any plate boundaries. The preliminary focal mechanism solution for the earthquake indicates rupture occurred on a moderately dipping fault plane striking roughly east-west. The earthquake location aligns with old faults in the basement and is nearly 75 km east of currently mapped north-south oriented Quaternary active faults. Further analysis and possibly fieldwork are required to associate this earthquake with an existing or unmapped fault.
Previously, on Aug 1, 1975, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake occurred approximately 30 km to the south of this earthquake; however, a detailed history of small (less than magnitude 3) earthquakes in this region is not well know because the region was not well covered by seismometers until recent years.
Locations across the central and eastern United States have been experiencing an increase in the number of earthquakes over the past two decades. Scientific studies have linked most of this increase to human (induced) activity, predominantly related to wastewater injection in deep disposal wells in several locations. However, other mechanisms such as fluid withdrawal, enhanced oil recovery, or hydraulic fracturing processes can also result in induced earthquakes. In addition, regions with frequent induced events may also be subject to damaging earthquakes that would have occurred independently of human activity.
Making a strong scientific case for a causative link between a particular human activity and a particular sequence of earthquakes typically involves special studies devoted specifically to the question. Such investigations usually address the process by which the suspected triggering activity might have significantly altered stresses in the rocks at the earthquake source, and they commonly address the ways in which the characteristics of the suspected human triggered earthquakes differ from the characteristics of natural earthquakes in the region.
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