Rare East Texas Earthquake (fracking?)

[arely staircase]

TIMPSON, Texas (AP) — A moderate earthquake rattled an area in (E)ast Texas near the Louisiana border.

http://www.chron.com/news/article/4-3-magnitude-earthquake-rattles-east-Texas-3565070.php

[NCarolinawoman]

1. Fracking was the first thing that came to my mind. n/t

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4. Expert: Well activity could be to blame for Timpson earthquakes

One of the state’s leading experts on earthquakes said Thursday that two recent quakes near Timpson might be connected to commercial injection wells operating in the area.

Cliff Frohlich was studying the May 10 earthquake northwest of Timpson when the earth shook again there early Thursday.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that a magnitude 4.3 quake rattled Shelby County a little after 3 a.m.

“I thought, ‘Whoa!’ I was working on the May 10 earthquake yesterday and now there’s another one.” said Frohlich, associate director of the University of Texas Institute of Geophysics.

Frohlich specializes in the study of Texas earthquakes.

“That area (around Timpson) is not very seismically active,” Frohlich said. “It is possibly human activity-related.”

Timpson, in Shelby County, is in the Haynesville shale formation — a hotbed of activity for natural gas exploration and extraction.



http://www.news-journal.com/news/local/expert-well-activity-could-be-to-blame-for-timpson-earthquakes/article_1cce2ccf-ffbb-5f43-976f-2bbaadc1efed.html

[ananda]

2. A geologist says it was a fault line.

I'm never sure how much I trust news stories that come out fast in order
to let a bad company and practice off the hook, but here's the link:

http://www.ketknbc.com/news/geologist-says-fault-line-not-fracking-to-blame-for-east-texas-earthquakes

One of the comments also suggests that injection wells might be at play here as another possibility.

[derby378]

3. I'm gonna go with the fault line on this one

Fracking does enough damage to the environment without us having to blame it for earthquakes. But I could be wrong.

[arely staircase]

5. see my post above - geologist believes it very well could be human activity nt

[RB TexLa]

6. Fracking LOL

wow