Oil and Earthquakes: History Says Engineers Have Always Known

[JR: This has been proven in South Louisiana oil fields where the low marshland has been sinking for decades due to extraction of oil and much of the land mass is now below sea level, which removes the natural wind break barriers as inland protection from hurricane winds and Tidal surge.]



Oil and Earthquakes: History Says
Engineers Have Always Known

by Mitch Battros - Earth Changes Media


In 1958, a geologist calculated that injecting fluid into the ground increases the chance of earthquakes. [JR: I believe it was in California that seismic events coincided with the dumping of toxic chemicals into deep drilled wells for years until scientist made the connection.]

Thirty-one years later, another geologist has shown the reverse: pumping gas or oil out of the ground can also trigger earthquakes.

Pumping out underground crude contracts the rock in oil reservoirs and sets up large pressure changes over short distances, Paul Segall of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., calculates in the October GEOLOGY. Vertical contraction makes the ground above the reservoir sink, while horizontal stresses pull surrounding rock inward. If the pull becomes strong enough to shear the rock, an earthquake results.



Although geologists have reported moderate earthquakes near gas and oil fields since the 1920s and have long suspected the wells as the cause, Segall's mathematical analysis shows specifically how and where the ground slips, says geologist C. Barry Raleigh of the University of Hawaii in honolulu. Segall's ground-breaking work discloses a dirty little secret oil engineers have always known.

"This is the first time that anyone has shown in any kind of analytical way that withdrawing fluid causes earthquakes," confirms John D. Bredehoeft of the USGS.

Because most earthquakes have been moderate in magnitude, petroleum engineers probably won't change their techniques, Raleigh says. But they didn't know about BP Oil drilling 5,000 off-shore in the Gulf of Mexico.

FULL ARTICLE - CLICK HERE

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Switzerland Geologist on Trial for 'Causing Quakes' (December 15 2009)

The head of a geothermal energy company has gone on trial in Switzerland accused of damaging property by triggering earthquakes.

Markus Haering's company had been working to convert the heat in deep-seated rocks into electricity. But the project was suspended in 2006 when drilling triggered the quakes. They caused no injuries but led to $9 million in damages.



The project was shut down permanently after a government study found that similar quakes caused by the project would lead to millions of dollars worth of damage each year. Appearing in court in the town of Basel, Mr Haering rejected allegations that he deliberately damaged properties and claimed local people were aware of the risks.

He said those involved had "very little knowledge of seismicity" before drilling began in the Petit-Huningue area of the city. But the project leaders had an emergency plan and "every minute, we knew what was going on and were able to act instantly". Didn't BP Oil just say that?

The Swiss government report concluded that if the project had been allowed to continue there was a 15% chance of it triggering a quake powerful enough to cause damage of up to $500 million dollars. There just happens to be a major fault line that runs beneath Basel, which led to a huge quake that devastated the city in 1356. But hey ... that was 600 years ago.

FULL ARTICLE - CLICK HERE

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China Earthquake Killing 80,000 People Caused by "Fluid Displacement" (May 12, 2008)

An earthquake that killed at least 80,000 people in Sichuan May 2008 was caused by 'fluid displacement'. Scientists in China and the United States believe the weight of fluid, and the effect of it penetrating into the rock, could have affected the pressure on the fault line underneath, possibly unleashing a chain of ruptures that led to the quake.

Fan Xiao, the chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau in Chengdu, said it was "very likely" that the construction and filling of the reservoir in 2004 had led to the disaster. "There have been many cases in which a water reservoir has triggered an earthquake," said Mr Fan. "This earthquake was very unusual for this area.



Pumping Fluid In or Out is the Cause

Christian Klose, a scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, argued that the sudden shift of 'fluid displacement' in the region could have simultaneously relaxed the tension between the two sides of the fault, allowing them to move apart, and also increased the direct pressure enough to cause a violent rupture. The effect was "25 times more" than a year's worth of natural stress from tectonic movement.

The 7.9 magnitude quake struck May 2008 and left more than five million people homeless. It remains a raw and emotional topic for most Chinese, and the government has been quick to quash any suggestion that Zipingpu may have been responsible for the catastrophe. Researchers have been denied access to seismological and geological data to examine the earthquake further.

FULL ARTICLE - CLICK HERE


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