Arkansas Is Shaken By Earthquakes Around Shale Drilling Operations

Formerly mostly earthquake-free Arkansas has been doing some shaking of late.

This shaking coming after letting Chesapeake Energy, and others, poke a lot of holes in the Arkansas Fayetteville Shale.

It seems each time the earth quakes in these areas getting drilled it's like a mystery whether or not there is a correlation.

Steve Horton, an earthquake specialist at the University of Memphis and hydrologic technician with the U.S. Geological Survey, is worried by a correlation between the Arkansas earthquake swarm and a side effect of the drilling: the disposal of wastewater in injection wells.

"Ninety percent of these earthquakes, that have happened since 2009, have been within 6 kilometers of these salt water disposal wells. The timing is too coincidental to ignore," Horton said.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 4.7-magnitude quake at 11 p.m. Sunday, centered just northeast of Greenbrier, about 40 miles north of Little Rock. It was the largest of more than 800 quakes to strike the area since September in what is now being called the Guy-Greenbrier earthquake swarm.

Despite earthquakes shaking in pretty much all the areas where shale drilling and fracturing is taking place, there are still legions of drillers being the cause deniers.

From an article about the Arkansas quakes, "Scientists are slow to draw conclusions on any subject, and despite years of speculation, there is still little consensus about whether the practice is contributing to the quakes."

The same lack of consensus regarding drilling caused quakes exists here in Texas.

In 2009, the small town of Cleburne, Texas, experienced the first recorded earthquake in Cleburne's 140-year history, quickly followed by another four shortly afterwards. Many experiencing the shaking quickly concluded the Barnett Shale drilling was causing it.

"I think John Q. Public thinks there is a correlation with drilling," Cleburne Mayor, Ted Reynolds, said. "We haven't had a quake in recorded history, and all the sudden you drill and there are earthquakes."

Yeah, it really is a big puzzle and mystery as to what is causing all the earthquakes where, previously, the earth stood fairly still.