Interesting earthquake talk on Bloomberg right now. Too bad my faith in "U.S. government scientists" is at its all-time low.
Earthquake Outbreak in Central U.S. Tied to Drilling Wastewater
By Mark Drajem - Apr 12, 2012 12:56 PM ET
Bloomberg.com
A spate of earthquakes across the middle of the U.S. is “almost certainly� manmade, and may coincide with wastewater from oil or gas drilling injected into the ground, U.S. government scientists said in a new study.
Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey said that for the three decades until 2000, seismic events averaged 21 a year in a central U.S. region. They jumped to 50 in 2009, 87 in 2010 and 134 in 2011.
Those statistics, included in the abstract of a research paper to be discussed at the Seismological Society of America conference next week in San Diego, were released a month after Ohio officials concluded that earthquakes there last year probably were caused by wastewater from hydraulic fracturing for natural gas injected into a disposal well, a state report said in March.
Full story: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-12/earthquake-outbreak-in-central-u-s-tied-to-drilling-wastewater.html