Oklahoma's earthquake threat now equals California's because of man-made temblors, USGS says [View all]
The earthquake risk for Oklahoma and southern Kansas is expected to remain significant in 2017, threatening 3 million people with seismic events that can produce damaging shaking, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey forecast released Wednesday.
The seismic risk is forecast to be so high that the chance of damage in Oklahoma and southern Kansas is expected to be similar to that of earthquakes in California, USGS scientists writing in the journal Seismological Research Letters said Wednesday.
In 2016 alone, Oklahoma experienced several damaging earthquakes, including a magnitude 5.0 temblor in November near the central oil town of Cushing — which proclaims itself the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World” — that dislodged unreinforced bricks in chimneys and storefronts, sending them tumbling onto the sidewalks.
Oklahoma also saw the largest quake ever recorded in the state in 2016, when a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck near Pawnee.
The earthquakes are thought to be the result of the disposal of wastewater deep underground that are a byproduct of oil extraction. Injecting the wastewater underground is not thought to trigger earthquakes everywhere it is practiced — in North Dakota, for example — but is widely believed by scientists to be a problem in Oklahoma.
More: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oklahome-earthquake-20170301-story.html
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