Study links recent Texas earthquakes with oil-and-gas extraction methods

A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences correlates 93 small earthquakes near Snyder, Texas between 2009 and 2011 with the underground injection of large volumes of gas, primarily carbon dioxide.

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Operators began injecting carbon dioxide in the Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operators Committee field in 1971 to boost petroleum production, a process known as Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery.

In the Cogdell field, operators began the process in 2001, with a significant increase starting in 2004.

Because carbon dioxide has been injected at large volumes for many years, U.S. Department of Energy has funded research in this region to explore the potential impacts of carbon capture and storage, a proposed technique for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing carbon dioxide and injecting it deep underground for long-term storage.

Using seismic data collected between March 2009 and December 2010 by the EarthScope USArray Program, a National Science Foundation-funded network of broadband seismometers deployed from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, study co-authors identified 93 earthquakes in the Cogdell area from March 2009 to December 2010, three of which were greater than magnitude 3. An even larger earthquake, with magnitude 4.4, occurred in Cogdell in September 2011.