Hydraulic Fracturing -The State of the Science

Date: Friday, June 8, 2012
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Rayburn House Office Building,
Room 2325
Washington, D.C.

Hydraulic fracturing is the process of injecting wells with water, sand, and chemicals at very high pressure to produce unconventional oil and natural gas. These resources pose both opportunities and challenges. Join us to learn how USGS and its partners provide information so policy makers and resource managers can make decisions based on sound science.

Moderator:
Harvey Thorleifson is the Director of the Minnesota Geological Survey and President Elect of the Association of American State Geologists (AASG).

Speakers:
Brenda Pierce is currently the Program Coordinator of the U.S. Geological Survey Energy Resources Program.

Rick Hammack is the Natural Systems Monitoring Geological and Environmental Sciences Coordinator for the National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Bill Leith is the Senior Science Advisor for Earthquake and Geologic Hazards at the
U.S. Geological Survey.

For more information on this briefing, please visit:

[lschevy]

So by releasing the energy stress from the earth more often with these smaller earth quakes we could be stopping larger quakes from occurring??

[jakebrewable]

The last speaker makes very unclear connections between earthquakes and fracturing. Oklahoma and Arkansas are natural tectonic areas due to the Ouachita orogeny rebounding and have earthquakes with associated hypocenters that several kilometers deep, far deeper than injection wells even hope to achieve. Also earthquakes have 1 major event and several smaller events that occur over time so the Arkansas example is invalid again.

[Kahrdis]

Anyone watching through this should also watch "Gasland". Great doc from 2011.

It's on YouTube in full length. You'll see just another great danger the ladies and gentlemen here fail to mention.

[GigiuZZolo]

beside that Gasland is not a documentary, it's science fiction.