Here’s four things to know about the earthquakes felt in D-FW last month, including safety tips, what’s behind them and how they might be prevented.
An array of pumpjacks operate near the site of a new oil and gas well being drilled Friday, April 8, 2022 in Midland, Texas. A large 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit West Texas on Friday, July 26, 2024. The U.S. Geological Survey said it’s highly likely the quake was caused by oil and gas activity. Near Snyder, dozens of residents reported property damage. Geophysicists say it’s highly likely these earthquakes are due to oil and gas operations, a decades-long phenomenon in Texas.
Scurry County posted on Facebook on July 26 that more than 50 reports of damage were made following the recent quakes. No injuries were reported, according to the Scurry County sheriff’s office dispatch. Skoumal said earthquakes in this area were first caused by “water flooding,” in which water is injected into fields where production has dropped to raise fluid pressures and allow for more oil production.
“That process has, in turn, reactivated really ancient faults,” DeShon said. “The earthquakes are essentially releasing leftover energy from when the faults formed hundreds of thousands of years ago.”To prevent earthquakes and their impacts in the region, DeShon said more research should be done to understand where fault lines are located, how big they are and how much water or what rate of wastewater injection triggers an earthquake.
Simply ceasing oil and gas operations might not eliminate earthquakes in the area, DeShon said. The cumulative history of wastewater injection from different operators into rock formations in the ground makes the impacts of oil and gas operations more complicated.“It’s not like turning off a water faucet,” DeShon said. “If you stop, the problem doesn’t go away because the fluids you put down there, there’s still pressure associated with them.
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