No , we ’re not referring to Starbuck and Apollo catch it on on Battlestar Galactica — but rather , “ fracking ” is a technique of drilling for born gas . And it can make even bigger disruptions than an ill - evaluate assemblage between two Colonial pilots .
A British report indicates that fracking may have caused two small earthquakes . And the chemical mechanism of fracking may be able to induce more .
On April 1st and May 27th , the sphere of Blackpool got excite , but only shake a bit . Two seism hit the field , the first a 2.3 and the second a 1.5 . These were not huge event . To put it in perspective , the more seismically active regions of California and Nevada see about five to ten earthquake of that size per day , and sometimes a couple per time of day . Even the relatively stable UK get about 15 earthquake of order of magnitude 2.3 per twelvemonth . Still , the two quakes in short orderliness turn all eye towards a society practicing fracking in the region .
Fracking call for pump large quantity of water into a region rich in natural gas . The water cracks rock in the area , create thousands of little groove through which the natural gasolene can babble upwards . The water also trickles down , getting into municipal piddle supplying while carry enough lifelike throttle that some mass can set their hydrant body of water on fire . It was n’t snap or combustion that caused the earthquake . Instead it was the presence of the piss itself . The urine allowed rocks that ordinarily would have remained interlace together , at least for some sentence , to become slippery and glide past each other . This caused with child - scale trend , and lead to the earthquakes .
Fracking , geologists say , may run to the discover of antecedently unknown fault furrow , which have been too small to be noticed until now . Possibly there are better ways to discover these , though , than by feeling them shake the countryside . Since there are no ways to be certain that fracking is done in a faultless area , geologists commend that all seismic activity in an area undergo fracking be monitored .
Image : Ruhrfisch
ViaNew Scientistand theUSGS .
EarthquakesFrackingScience
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