Wednesday, May 18, 2016

An important study out of Texas.

May 18, 2016
By Jennifer Hiller

Oil and gas activity (click here) has triggered most of the earthquakes in Texas for decades, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University.

The study links earthquakes to the energy industry for nearly as long as there has been oil drilling in Texas, occurring in all of its oil and gas fields scattered in various geographic swaths of the state —North Texas, the Panhandle, West Texas, East Texas and Gulf Coast region, including South Texas and the 400-mile Eagle Ford Shale.

The research was published Wednesday in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

Cliff Frohlich, senior research scientist and associate director at UT’s Institute for Geophysics, said that while much attention has been paid to Oklahoma’s recent earthquakes, which have generally been stronger than those in Texas, researchers thought the Texas story was important to document....