Are Earthquakes one result of oil extraction?

[dickthegrouch]

I have always wondered what is filling the void left by extracting vast amounts of oil from the planet.

Not only is there a massive reduction in pressure which could weaken subterranean structures, but oil is relatively heavy and there must be a weight distribution change too.

Is it possible that some earthquakes are a result of our addiction to oil?

Haiti is not far from the Gulf of Mexico
The recent massive quakes in Iran and China are also not far from vast oil fields.

Anyone know?

[hobbit709]

1. Tectonic plate movement has nothing to do with oil extraction.

At most with oil extraction, you might get a few localized sinkholes.

[dickthegrouch]

3. I agree Tectonic plate movements are more likely

However,
Isn't it possible that plate movement is facilitated by an unfathomably large re-distribution of the mass of the oil?

What is the mass of however many billions of barrels are extracted from any one region per year? Can you really dismiss so quickly that that might have a profound effect?

[AlecBGreen]

7. extracting oil will NOT affect plate movement in any meaningful way

The combined worldwide extraction of oil amounts to a cubic mile per year. Even the smallest plate is many orders of magnitude larger.

IMO it IS at least feasible for oil extraction to cause an earthquake. Removing a great weight of oil could possibly cause the crust to rebound and fracture. OTOH, we dont hear of many EQs in eastern Saudi Arabia over Ghawar.

[truedelphi]

2. Then there is the thing of the Tesla technology that

Our government officials claim is only used for Boy Scout type science projects.

Please do not google on terms like "HAARP." Nothing to see here, please move on.

[TheWraith]

9. Do you believe that the Twin Towers were brought down by elves, too?

Spare us the mindless, science-free conspiracy theory babble.

[truedelphi]

26. If the HAARP, and chemtrail theories were not valid science,

Dennis Kucinich would not have had his staff write up an entire section to be inserted for his "Anti-Militarization" of Space Act. Including the phrase "tectonic." (On edit, that ws H.R. bill 3616)

Power that Be made him take that major provision out, but so what? The Powers that Be are now having NASA teach schoool kids total nonsense, regarding contrails.

And BTW I don't think the Towers were brought down by elves.

And if you can prove they were brought down by two airplanes with jet fuel, you are not in agreement with the 67% of the NYC population who realize the Official Conspiracy Theory is mere propaganda.

Plus if you can prove that the Towers were brought down by Jet Fuel, there is still (as far as I know) a $ 100,000 prize to go to you, if you possess the scientific background to write your proof out.

[wtmusic]

4. Yes

Probably only minor ones, though. Enjoy...

Oil and Gas Production Induced Earthquake References

http://www.nyx.net/~dcypser/induceq/pis.html

[joshcryer]

14. Excellent resource.

[bhikkhu]

5. All oil deposits lie well above tectonic plates

I don't think the bedrock is much concerned with what goes on above, and the scale of oil extraction would be pretty tiny in comparison to the forces of an earthquake.

[AlecBGreen]

8. oil deposits are IN the plates

Bedrock is the solid rock found beneath soil, anywhere from a few inches to maybe 100' below your feet.

[bhikkhu]

16. Here's a cross section of deep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

The quake in Haiti was at the junction of the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate, structures which tend close to the surface on land, but you can see that even the deepest drilling in the gulf doesn't approach the bedrock and is pretty insignificant, on a geologic scale.

[AlecBGreen]

17. i think you are confused on the definition of bedrock

per google

Definitions of bedrock on the Web:

solid unweathered rock lying beneath surface deposits of soil

The diagram you posted shows layers of deposited sedimentary rock (=the upper-most portion of the crust) which is carried around by the north american plate. ALL the crust on earth, all the oceans, mountains, oil, people, etc are just puddles and ridges and bumps on the top of tectonic plates. The North American plate is diving underneath the carribean plate. This is called a subduction zone. As such, the entire Caribbean is ringed by active volcanic islands, a deep ocean trench, and is marked by frequent earthquakes as the NA plate slides underneath.

[Nihil]

19. Pedantically, oil deposits are ON the plates.

I think the previous poster was confusing "bedrock" with "basement rock",
i.e., the true top of the plates, underneath all that soft sedimentary
crap that builds up over time (geological dust-bunnies).

(*Real* rocks are igneous - the others are just derivatives! :evilgrin:)

[AlecBGreen]

20. lol

geologic dust bunnies...I like that

[M155Y_A1CH]

6. More likely global warming

The earth has a rising temperature,
expect symptoms of ill health too ensue.

[TheWraith]

10. The atmosphere does not affect tectonic plates. Earthquakes have zip to do with global warming. nt

[M155Y_A1CH]

21. How could that be known?

The temperature of the earth's core is never affected by it's surroundings? The magma cannot become more fluid if heat is increased or not decreased?

Earth is a system with interconnecting parts. How one part can effect another is only vaguely known and cause of much speculation.

BTW, I also speculate that it would be a good idea to paint the roof white until we clean up our act atmospherically.
Small effects become large when they occur all over the globe.

[TheWraith]

25. Because of a thing called science.

In the dead of winter, the ground never freezes below a certain point a few feet down, because the ground insulates itself. The places where earthquakes happen are typically hundreds of thousands of feet down, completely immune to temperature changes in the air. Besides which, if the temperature of the air COULD affect the mantle, it would COOL it, not heat it. Atmospheric temperature variations affecting earthquakes would be like someone urinating in the Atlantic Ocean and expecting to change the direction of the gulf stream.

[M155Y_A1CH]

27. The science in your mind?

The frost-free zone that you mention proves that the planet looses heat from the core not that it is insulated from the surface.
Heat transfers more quickly when the difference in temperature is greater.
The outer shell of the earth is warming; heat transfer from the inner core should naturally slow down.

Where exactly does any of this diverge from science?

[TheWraith]

28. You fail high school science class.

To slow the heat transfer from the core of the earth to any degree that would affect anything would require that the atmosphere were basically made of plasma.

Again--to claim that global warming causes earthquakes is science-free quackery of the highest order.

[TheWraith]

11. No, they're not.

Or at least no more than localized microtremors. Significant earthquake are the result of tectonic plate movement.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. You can make bigger ones by injecting water into the ground.

See Fault Lubrication

but extracting oil? very, very tiny impact.

[pscot]

13. Absolutely

That's why there were no earthquakes before John D Rockefeller began drilling in Pennsylvania.

[PavePusher]

15. Sheeeeeeesh. I'll get my hat...

:tinfoilhat:

[TxRider]

18. They are examining that in Texas

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1457551.html

http://geology.com/news/2009/chesapeake-energy-closes-wells-near-earthquakes.shtml

[Dogmudgeon]

22. It's one of the problems with geothermal energy

http://www.livescience.com/environment/091216-geothermal-risk.html">Earthquake Concerns Shake Geothermal Energy Projects.

It seems logical that there is some local seismic activity, but the big quakes are clearly from tectonic stress.

As hard as it is to conceive, under high pressure, rock itself has a certain elasticity, so there are no problems with voids.

We also know that there is additional oil and gas trapped in the rock "matrix", although it may not be easily recoverable. Most of the earlier replies present the situation in some detail.

--d!

[kristopher]

23. It is "alleged" to be one of the problems.

To my knowledge there is no documented correlation and no theoretical basis for the belief - just a bunch of anecdotal NIMBY type local objections.

[Dogmudgeon]

24. Whatever you say.

I've only ever seen it discussed as a scientific observation, but I know that the phenomenon is currently being investigated. The concern I've seen is mainly about the possibility of damage to the geothermal units themselves, with the sole exception of the mild quake in Basel, Switzerland -- a guess, but the kind of thing that attracts geologists' interest.

If there have been NIMBY reactions, they've flown below my radar. I would think that wastewater issues would be the first things to attract attention. I'll keep it in mind, though.

Geothermal has a lot of potential, particularly deep "dry" geothermal, but it has not yet been the object of much sustained interest. I expect that will change in the coming years.

--d!

[DeadEyeDyck]

29. Oh I get it

take the oil out of the plates and they are no longer lubicated so they grind when they move. That's the ticket!