Frack it.

[Gudgeonville]

As a geologist I never give faults and movement deep beneath the earths surface much thought in my daily life. (all faults have moved and will move again even if in geologic time, just think very long time) I don't think about it because it is constantly occurring somewhere around the world. And we will have earthquakes because of it. Those quakes that you feel are small and maybe the disposal of fluids caused some small quakes and kept a very large one from occurring by not allowing that pressure to build very high. That being said, disposal wells need to be sited using good science and technology and I should say that most are done this way. I can't speak for the one in Youngstown but rumor has it that they were deeper than what they reported to the state and were required to plug it back to the formation that they told the state that they were going to dispose into.

2 years ago I was in Virginia Beach on vacation when the earthquake hit in the Charlottesville VA, area. I was on the 8th floor of a beachfront hotel and my 5 family members felt and saw the hotel sway back and forth for about 3 seconds or so. Very odd feeling. Absolutely no fracing or waste disposal anywhere near this site. Good old Mother Nature!

 

[FarmerDave]

Ohhh, so it's your "fault." ;-)

I'm not a geologist, but you probably can figure that out. I just find it to be a very interesting subject. I did take a couple course on it, but only know enough to figure out that you weren't talking our of your *** on the first one.

I agree with you that this was no big deal, nor could it have been at that location. The sky is not falling, nor could it have fallen at that location. The geology is not conducive to large earthquakes, and that fault was very old and very inactive.

Your statement about that well being deeper than it was supposed to be also makes sense to me. How else could on explain why the epicenters were 2500 feet below the well unless the well was deeper than reported.

As far as I know, they were never allowed to resume disposal at that wall.

It was a learning experience for the industry and rules were changed as a result.

 

[osprey]

I had the same impression of OHIO as most until a good friend moved there , southern part , Near BBowling Green , grand deer huntin amd morel mushrooms are everywhere and to the north the LAKE.

 

[Gone4Day]

The latest research on hydraulic fracturing induced earthquakes:
Durham University

Went to a presentation a while back on monitoring a frack job using micro-seismic. Initially, they tried from the surface but couldn't pick up anything beyond background noise. So they drilled another horizontal well in the rock a couple hundred feet above the shale, between two other wells they intended to frack. Even then, they couldn't hear anything beyond 1000' away.

Where they were able to get a response, they could plot location and timing of the fractures. The data showed they stayed in the shale, but went twice as far laterally as they previously thought. They were fracking the boreholes too close together, and each new frack job was partially closing in the previous one.

At least that was the justification for spending several minion dollars on a research experiment.

 

[pcray1231]

I'm not sure about in PA, but I know in a lot of areas they track the location of the drill from the surface. Drill basically on remote control, no physical connection to surface. Hole filled with drilling mud. And they determine location of the drill via vibrations in the mud. They also communicate with the drill by inducing vibrations in the mud. When you consider that drill is over 1000 feet down, around a bend, and perhaps a half mile laterally, that's just crazy amazing to me.

 

[osprey]

Gudge........The epicenter of the Virginia quake was in "Mineral" VA and there was horizontal drilling taking place from VA to Canada when that quake occurred.