Frank, did you feel the earthquake?

Stu has it right. I didn't even know about it until it was on the news. But a neighbor, about a mile away, was up at night and felt it.
There is an area about 60 miles south of here where there has been drilling for natural gas. As part of the process a fluid, called 'fracking' is pumped into the ground. For some reason, the contents of that fluid are kept secret by law. In the immediate area (about a 20 mile radius) of the drilling they have been having many small quakes since the drilling started. It hasn't been proved the two are related but local folks are scared and upset.
There is a fault in that area but it has never caused problems until recently.
There is a famous fault about 125 miles east of me, it is called the New Madrid fault. In 1812 it unleased a biggie that caused the Mississippi River to run backwards and even formed lakes. We are in a light damage zone if it should bust loose again.
 
I don't know the chemical content of the liquid you mentioned, but have shipped it all over the world... a lot of places refer to it as oilfield mud... I'm not sure of it's actual use and but suspect it is a case of displacing the oil and gas much like pouring sand or something into a jar to raise the liquid to a level the pumps can reach,

Another method of getting oil to flow and I suppose gas also is to "fracture" the wells... they send pipes down the well that are called down hole guns... they are very heavy wall pipes with small recesses drilled into the sides that have shaped charges installed... they then explode the charges to "fracture the walls and supposedly cause the oil and gases to flow better... I used to ship both the guns and the charges all around the world... matter of fact, my only broken bone in my life came from a down hole gun falling on my big toe and breaking in the last joint in 6 pieces... literally crushed the end of my big toe....

Biggest problem I ever had with the explosives was into South Africa... I could get the charges there with no problems... never did get the permits from the SA government to ship the detoniation cord... without the det cord, the charges were useless.

I'm wondering if the drillers have been using the charges... that could have disturbed the strata under the ground and cause the layers to slip...
 
According to news reports, the fracking fluid is quite different than oil well mud and serves a different purpose. It actually causes underground explosions that release the natural gas.
What bothers most people is the secrecy about it's contents. If safe, why make secret?
 
It's often got diesel fuel and/or other unhealthy things in it. Here's more info:

http://www.earthworksaction.org/FracingDetails.cfm

Thanks. That is scary interesting.
Of course, those living close by the drilling operation are concerned about the safety of their drinking water which comes from their own private wells. I have well water and would have hissy fits of this was happening near my property.
I think we better go private before straying into the political arena.
 
Crap...I'm still waiting to fall into the ocean. There is a great comedian that does a bit about the wind turbine's in the Altamont Pass and Techachapi parts of California...something about we already broke off the world, but the fans are blowing us back together...may have had to be there...but it was funny when I heard it :p:p
 
Thanks. That is scary interesting.

Frank,

There's a video out there, shot in some region where they're doing fracking, Pennsylvania, I think. Anyway, the guy goes into the laundry room and turns on the sink faucet, fed from a well. Then he gets out his lighter...

The water coming out of the faucet literally catches fire! I'm pretty sure it's an extremely unusual case, or we'd be seeing teenagers doing it all over youtube. But it's pretty freaky, all the same. Still, this is the first I've heard of earthquakes associated with the practice...

Thanks,

Bill
 
I thought it might be useful to shed some light on this drilling process. I worked for an oil company for 15 years (and spent plenty of time sitting on wells), and my family has been in that business since I was born. Those are my credentials. :D All I want to do here is explain the process a little, I have no axe to grind and I don't like pollution either.

First, drilling mud has nothing to do with frac'ing or literally "fracturing" called "fracking" in the media. Drilling mud is used during drilling for about 20 different reasons including lubricating and cooling the bit and applying a counter-pressure in the hole so it (hopefully) doesn't blow out.

The explosive charges mentioned, have nothing to do with drilling and nothing to do with frac'ing. The explosives are used when the well is being "completed" after the drilling is done, but before any possible frac'ing. After the well is drilled, if the company thinks it's going to produce something, they run some pipe into it called "casing", cement the casing in place. And then the drilling rig leaves.

Then another rig comes called a "service rig". This is a much smaller rig, and these folks usually work daylight hours only. The casing which has been cemented in place, has effectively sealed off the area which will hopefully produce oil or gas. The service rig folks use explosives to blow little holes in the wall of the casing and it's through these holes that the oil or gas flows. That's called perforating or perfing the well. BTW, working on a service rig is much more dangerous than working on a drilling rig, which is dangerous enough.

After another round of testing, the oil folks may decide that they don't think the well is producing enough or fast enough, so then they may "frac" the well. Frac'ing the well means they pump under very high pressure some secret liquid with some bits in it like sand or walnut shells or whatever into the well bore and it goes out into the rock formation. The bits of hard things in effect prop open the rock (they're called proppants) and sometimes that makes the well produce better.

Does oil well drilling cause seismic activity? Definitely. By its definition if you pump stuff into the rock you're causing changes under the ground. Is it going to cause a major earthquake? Probably not. The seismic activity that causes earthquakes is very deep inside the earth and most oil wells aren't. If oil wells are super deep (several miles) in an area where there is already naturally occurring heavy activity, then it's possible. Causing earthquakes is more probable where they are doing geothermal drilling, or drilling for steam, which are usually much deeper wells specifically targeted around areas of high activity under ground......Here's an article in Scientific American about that. And here's another one from the Wall Street Journal. I mention these because they are highly respected publications if you want to learn more.

I won't comment on any of the other stuff about pollution or junk coming out of faucets etc. except to say that drilling in general is much more tightly regulated in Canada which has pro's and con's.

I hope this helps.
 
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Thanks for the insight, Cynthia. It was a good education. :thumb:

I spent a week as a swamper on a water drilling rig shortly after I finished high school. In the middle of the fifth day, after getting my second full-body spraydown with driller's mud of the day, I walked off the job. Actually, I tore off my shirt, threw in on the ground, stormed off to the little camp trailer the three of us were living in, changed clothes, and then drove off the job. :p (We were about 40 miles from paved roads, in the middle of the Navajo reservation in Arizona.) The Greasewood Trading Post was the closest "civilization", and it was 40 miles away. I remember they had two brands of cigarettes...Marlboro red and Kool menthol. :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the insight, Cynthia. It was a good education. :thumb:

I spent a week as a swamper on a water drilling rig shortly after I finished high school. In the middle of the fifth day, after getting my second full-body spraydown with driller's mud of the day, I walked off the job. Actually, I tore off my shirt, threw in on the ground, stormed off to the little camp trailer the three of us were living in, changed clothes, and then drove off the job. :p (We were about 40 miles from paved roads, in the middle of the Navajo reservation in Arizona.) The Greasewood Trading Post was the closest "civilization", and it was 40 miles away. I remember they had two brands of cigarettes...Marlboro red and Kool menthol. :rolleyes:

Well, Vaughn, it's a hard job and it's not for everyone. It's often a rude awakening for young kids ;). It's one of the few professions left where anyone can work his/her way up from the bottom to a pretty senior job with a lot of responsibility. These guys are well-paid after they get past the first rung or 2 of the ladder, but they're often working away from home for long periods. They're even better paid if they're willing to work abroad or offshore, and they're in high demand, but those jobs carry even more risk. In my experience, if it's any consolation, the guys who do the best, are generally the shorter stockier types. Tall guys usually don't last long--you're in that category, no? ;) Water well drilling is slightly different, but the risks and processes are similar.....
 
We have a bunch of activity around one of my pieces of property here, in search of natural gas. I did not sell my mineral rights as many did, still wonder if that was the right choice...

They are frac'ing here to release gas, but I really don't know much about it. People are worried about the water, and rumors fly like black flies around here so you can't put much stock in anything you hear.

Thanks for the post Cynthia, interesting......
 
thanks cynthia for the info,, i have a real good friend in Mississippi that used to be a drilling supt.. and his brother is in charge of the china branch of "Wells Barton" ,,not spelt right but you know the company:) and his stories are very intersting..
 
Here is my only experiance with an earthquake.....

I was roughing in a house about 1993 in Albion Mi. and was up to the roof level. This was a house built into the side of a hill, and the roof system was all on glue lams, cantilevered out 4" on a thunderbird front. All windows so not a lot holding things solid until the roof sheathing is on.

I had just crawled out on the top beam to start my rafter layout, so I was wrapped around this beam 38' above concrete at the basement level. I had just hooked my tape and the whole building shook. It shook a lot! I dropped the tape and grabbed on to that beam!

I came down and I spent the rest of the day going over the house looking for something that could have moved, some mistake on my part. Looked all day long and nothing.....

Next day I went in to have coffee in the morning and all the local farmers were talking about the earthquake. All of a sudden it made sense. I never watch TV or listen to radios so I had no clue. I didn't even know we had fault lines in Michigan.
 
Interesting read, Cynthia.
But, the issue here in central and north Arkansas is natural gas drilling. The fracking process is to release the gas.
In the extreme south-east and south-west corners of the state there is some oil drilling.
 
Interesting read, Cynthia.
But, the issue here in central and north Arkansas is natural gas drilling. The fracking process is to release the gas.
In the extreme south-east and south-west corners of the state there is some oil drilling.

Frank, the drilling, completing, and frac'ing processes are the same whether it's oil drilling or gas drilling. In fact, often they don't know what they'll get out of a well. They think they'll get gas, and they get oil or vice versa. Or they can get both....or neither.....It's not an exact science. As far as earthquakes go in your area, the issues are mainly how deep are these wells, and how much seismic activity do you already have and at what depth.

thanks cynthia for the info,, i have a real good friend in Mississippi that used to be a drilling supt.. and his brother is in charge of the china branch of "Wells Barton" ,,not spelt right but you know the company:) and his stories are very intersting..

Yeah, I've got plenty of good stories too having grown up around it in Louisiana. :rofl: :rofl:
 
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