Planetary Ruin

While disagreement abounds on this topic, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) say that oil production can cause earthquakes, but not the kind reported in the news.

Some earthquakes, such as the 2004 quake that triggered a deadly tsunami in Sumatra, occur at plate boundaries where hard, rocky slabs slide against each other to release tremendous amounts of energy. Oil generally is found in permeable sediments that are soft and squishy, not in hard rock. When this squishy land moves, it releases a small amount of energy, which can lead to a “mini-seismic event”—one that is barely detected on the Richter scale.

Here’s how it works: With high-tech equipment, oil companies pinpoint oil-rich areas and use large drills to puncture the surface below the sea, sometimes as deep as 10,000 feet. As this pricey fluid gets sucked from the sediment pores, the surrounding rocks shift positions to fill in the newly vacated spaces. At a large scale, for example the volume displaced when millions of barrels of oil are produced, the land movement can actually cause a mini-seismic earthquake, said Robert Morton, a USGS coastal geologist.

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An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 jolted Tokyo and its vicinity in eastern Japan early Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the 3:18 a.m. quake.

The quake measured 3 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 3 in Tokyo, Mito and Hitachiomiya in Ibaraki Prefecture, Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture, Ichihara and Kimitsu in Chiba prefecture and Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture.

The center of the quake was in the eastern region of Shizuoka Prefecture in central Japan and about 170 kilometers underground, according to the agency.

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