Such a pretty site
Oklahoma's fracking boom coincides with the ground shaking.
We all suspect/know this:
In 2014, the fault line-riddled West Coast state experienced 180 earthquakes of a magnitude 3 or higher. Oklahoma, which pre-2009 averaged one per year, had 562 — tripling the former record holder’s total count.
These quakes are not just the kind that scientific
machines can feel. It's the result of the wastewater injection wells, from fracking operations. Exactly how is not fully known but the correlation is there. So, even though California still owns the deadliest earthquakes in the United States' record, this sudden change in seismology means everything must be re-evaluated.
It's also unlikely that places with booming fracking operations will scale back anytime soon.
But similar reductions in the US are unlikely. The oil and gas industry employs hundreds of thousands of people in both Texas and Oklahoma, and natural gas has become widely popular among electric utilities for its low cost.
Just waiting for a really big one I guess.