Quote Originally Posted by mkjeeves View Post
The part I quoted when I entered this conversation where you used the paraphrase "stating without equivocation that the driver of man made seismic activity is not fracking but rather injection wells."

But who said what is not all that important to me compared to the lay of the land. An accurate statement on the subject IMO goes something like this:

Fracking has only been scientifically directly linked to manmade seismic activity of significant concern on one occasion in Ohio. All other studies thus far have indicated manmade seismic activity of significant concern in oil and gas exploration is indirectly related to fracking though the industry practice of disposing of wastewater generated in the drilling process at offsite injection wells rather than caused by the onsite fracking process itself.
Good grief, again. I do NOT use the word “unequivocally” since you’re bent on characterizing my position. What I said was “...and [articles] which sort it out very clearly, stating without equivocation that the driver of man made seismic activity is not fracking but rather injection wells...” and used the other phrase in the same post, which again I think states pretty clearly my position that the real thing that is causing damaging earthquakes is injection.

Your proposed summation was fairly close, I’ll go ahead and make a few changes:

“Though fracking is often erroneously mentioned in news reports or by the public as the direct cause of induced seismic events strong enough to be felt or to cause damage, it has only been directly linked to such activity by a scientific study on one occasion in Ohio, in 2014. All other studies thus far have indicated manmade seismic activity of significant concern related oil and gas exploration is almost universally caused by the industry practice of disposing of wastewater generated in the drilling processes of all types - including fracked and unfracked wells - at offsite injection wells.”

Disclaimer: I honestly have no idea whether that Ohio event is the one and only time geologists have blamed fracking for a “felt” earthquake. Just trying to head off whichever poster goes out and finds the one (or two, or whatever) times it has happened elsewhere, just to try to show me up. The point remains - very compellingly - that accepted science believes it has happened very, very few times - enough to characterize it as “very rare” - and accepted science ALSO believes that many thousands if not tens of thousands of seismic events (many, many of which have been “felt” and even damaging) have been induced by wastewater injection. It’s so incredibly lopsided that I don’t understand why anyone feels the need to prove the point regarding the one in Ohio.