Report: Big Okla. quake in 2011 likely man-made

[dkf]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An unusual and widely felt 5.6-magnitude quake in Oklahoma in 2011 was probably caused when oil drilling waste was pushed deep underground, a team of university and federal scientists concluded.

That would make it the most powerful quake to be blamed on deep injections of wastewater, according to a study published Tuesday by the journal Geology. The waste was from traditional drilling, not from the hydraulic fracturing technique, or fracking.

Not everyone agrees, though, with the scientists' conclusion: Oklahoma's state seismologists say the quake was natural.

The Nov. 6 earthquake near Prague, Okla., injured two people, damaged 14 houses and was felt for hundreds of miles in 14 states, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the largest quake in the central part of the country in decades and largest in Oklahoma records, experts said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_MAN_MADE_QUAKE?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-26-18-57-55

[Berlum]

1. Crack, Inc.

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