U.S. Gov’t: It’s ‘Likely’ Increase in Quakes is Manmade

“It appears likely that the observed seismicity rate changes in the middle part of the United States in recent years are manmade.”
–David J. Hayes, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior

Source: Dateline Zero

The U.S. Department of Interior has responded to some news reports suggesting that recent drilling in the U.S. is the cause of recent earthquakes. Posting at the DOI’s website, David J. Hayes, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior explains:

Last week, following the publication of an abstract intended to preview an upcoming talk by a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist, a number of news articles started popping up about new scientific evidence of a link between unconventional oil and gas production here in the United States, and seismic activity (earthquakes).

Unfortunately – although not surprisingly given the limited information available in the abstract – the accuracy of these media reports varied greatly. With this blog post, I want to clarify a few points about USGS’s important and ongoing work to study induced seismicity.

There’s plenty of eye-rolling crap in Hayes’s post; especially meaningless comments like: “Science will continue to play a critical role as the Obama administration moves forward with an all-of-the-above strategy for American energy.”

However main point he seems to make is that correlation doesn’t equal causation. The study did find some interesting things that warrant further investigation. But that doesn’t mean they’ve nailed down a cause.

That said, it does seem that they’ve found some damn interesting evidence. Mr. Hayes himself says: “It appears likely that the observed seismicity rate changes in the middle part of the United States in recent years are manmade.” Wow!

It’s a pretty interesting read, because it quickly goes from a “don’t jump to conclutions” tone, into “we’re pretty damn sure about this.”

Anyhoo, David J. Hayes’s full piece is at DOI.gov: “Is the Recent Increase in Felt Earthquakes in the Central US Natural or Manmade?”

Meanwhile, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has launched an investigation into the Obama administration’s EPA strategy of “inciting fear.” Could Obama’s DOI be guilty of the same thing?

Full post at Dateline Zero