It’s the age-old battle of humans versus nature. The media has shown a light on man-induced issues such as Global Warming for decades, but the new buzz at the corner of monetary profit and natural demise is human-caused earthquakes.
To shake things up at the University of Memphis and help inform students on the topic, The Society of Exploration Geophysicists invited the expert, Dr. Cliff Frohlich, to speak on his seismic revelations.
Blaine Bockholt, the president of the society, is a graduate student with a PhD. in seismology. He is one of the many students researching at
the Center of Earthquake Research Institute.
“I tell my wife and kid I look at squiggly lines (at work),” joked the 29-year-old.
He said they proposed the invitation to the Student Event Allocation because they wanted to provide scientific input.
“This is a hot topic in the energy industry, (but) the media is always covering it. We thought it would be nice to have a scientist talk about it, an expert,” he continued.
Bockholt has monitored earthquakes in many places including India and Canada.
“No one, to my knowledge, can predict earthquakes,” Bockholt said. “Hence, all the science, but we want to avoid causing (them).”
Specifically, one of the leading causes in human-induced earthquakes is Hydraulic Fracturing, commonly known as “Fracking.” It is a drilling technique used to obtain natural resources for the purposes of energy, but the pressure from the liquid disturbs plate tectonics, and indirectly causes earthquakes.
Steve Horton, research scientist at CERI, has been studying the topic for about 20 years, and he has been working at the U of M for at least ten.
He described the cause of earthquakes as exceptional amounts of the pressure and stress upon tectonic plates due to temperature and other factors.
“There’s been a big increase in the rate of earthquakes in the Central and Eastern United States that’s associated with the expansion of the energy industry,” Horton said.
According to him, as late as 2010, there were no regulations for injecting large amounts of fluids in the ground in the United States. Many states, including Tennessee, still don’t have regulations for this type of mining although other places in the mid-south have been affected. A fracking site in Arkansas closed due to seismic threats.
Horton also said there hasn’t been any human-induced earthquake larger that a 5.6.
“There has been no human-induced earthquake as big as Chili or the one in Japan a few years back, but that is our question. Can we cause earthquakes as large as that,” Bockholt said.
To hear more on the subject of human-induced earthquakes, students are welcome to attend Frohlich’s lecture on Thursday, September 18th. It will be held in the River Room in the University Center.
“I’m going,” Horton said. “Maybe (Frohlich) will have some good stuff to show. It’ll be interesting to see what his perspective is.”
