Last week's Critical Issues Webinar, "State Responses to Induced Earthquakes" (recording now available), gave valuable insight into how humans can cause earthquakes and what can be done to prevent them. Speaking of induced earthquakes, at the 2017 Seismological Society of America (SSA) Annual Meeting, which is taking place in Denver this week, attendees saw an amazing video that hammers home the recent uptick in the frequency of these events. SSA tweeted it out today:
The September 3rd earthquake in Pawnee, Oklahoma, renewed national discussion on the link between earthquakes and human activity. "Induced seismicity," as human-caused earthquakes are referred to in the field, has been linked to the injection of industrial wastewater into disposal wells deep beneath the Earth's surface. Recently published research from the U.S.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports that the rate of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by about 50 percent since October 2013, indicating increased probability that a damaging quake will strike central Oklahoma.