Earthquakes in Oklahoma

In our first visit to Oklahoma we were about to go to sleep in the small historic town of Guthrie when we experienced our first earthquake. No such experience this time but I was shocked to learn the number of quakes that happen in the area have increased from 2 per year four years ago, to 585 last year. Until recently the local government was in denial over the reasons for the massive change. But now the state is admitting that the injection into deep underground wells of fluid byproducts from drilling operations is behind the quakes. This wastewater injection a byproduct of fracking, impacts Oklahoma’s underground faults and began in 2010-11. New reports describe for the first time how injection-induced earthquakes are occurring at a higher rate than ever before and pose a much greater risk to people living nearby and are likely to increase from the current magnitude of 3.0 to 5.0 or greater in the very near future.