The goal of the study, published last Monday in the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was to investigate earthquakes greater than magnitude 3 of the period between 2006 and 2011.
To do so, data from oil, water and gas injection and extraction in the Cogdell oil field near Snyder, Texas were evaluated. Water injection for the improvement of oil production was the reason for previous earthquakes between 1957 and 1982. According to the results of the survey, water injection doesn’t seem to have triggered the last period’s quakes. However, the considerable amounts of gas injection including CO2 since 2004, as a method of storing harmful greenhouse gases, are most likely to have induced the tremors. As the authors of the study point out, the absence of similar earthquakes in adjacent fields indicates the contribution of geological faults in the Cogdell area. This is the first attempt to link earthquakes to carbon dioxide injections and further studies as well as geological models may help evaluate possible risks in climate change management.
Source: PNAS, industryweek.com
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