deepthunk
Justadude with a keyboard
- Feb 19, 2011
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Lately I have heard a lot of issue from environmental groups who have been claiming that the energy industry using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is causing these earthquakes, however earthquakes are not occurring in other areas where franking is being used even more frequently. [1]
Well, I freely admit to not being a geologist, however I have a laymen’s theory I’d like to lay out there and I was wondering if anyone who is educated in geology could give me some feedback.
There are natural faults in Oklahoma that have been known to have caused earthquakes, the earliest of which that was recorded was in 1918, long before any “fracking” ever occurred.[2] Until recently the faults have been quiet but have become more active, as faults in the earth’s crust sometimes do, environmentalist believe that the fracking is somehow causing the faults to be more active, but I have another theory.
Area’s of geological instability such as volcanoes and hot springs are caused by geothermal uprisings in the magma beneath the earths crust. This is because of thermal convection, magma, like water, rises when it heats and sinks when it cools, so magma sets up vertical currents as it gains heat in the pressure near the earth’s core, and then sinks as it loses heat to the crust causing vertical currents circulating from the planets core to up to the bottom of the crust and back again.
In area’s where the magma rises it puts pressure on the underside of the crust and pushes magma up high enough in the crust to cause hot springs and volcano’s.
Because of plate tectonics, the earth’s crust is drifting slowly over these rising currents from east to west, that’s why for example the Hawaiian islands form a chain running from east to west, the Atlantic plate is moving slowly west over the rising current causing magma to be pushed up farther eastward on the plate which is why the islands progress in age from the oldest on the west to the youngest on the east. [3] The same is true of hot springs; rising magma beneath the earth’s crust pushes up into it and heats the water table.
There are a number of hot springs in Colorado and New Mexico, indicating that there is a magma uprising directly to the west of Oklahoma and Kansas [4] As the north American plate drifts to the west, it very slowly moves over that that uprising just as the Atlantic plate does beneath Hawaii.
The rising current of magma continually puts pressure on the bottom of the crust, like as if you were to put a jack beneath the ice of a frozen pond and use it to push upward on the ice causing the ice to bow slightly and crack.
I think that as the north American plate drifts slowly westward, the uprising in magma puts pressure on the underside of the plate farther and farther eastward, creating the energy witch is causing the previously less active faults under Oklahoma and Kansas to slowly grow more and more active, this is possibly why all such faults grow more and less active over long periods of time.
So if anyone actually reads that whole essay, tell me, am I way off base, or could there be some validity here?
[1] Environmentalists Fear Fracking Causing Earthquakes - Eagle Rising
[2] Oklahoma
[3] The Hawaiian Islands
[4] Colorado Hot Springs and New Mexico Hot Springs and Mineral Baths Discover New Mexico
Well, I freely admit to not being a geologist, however I have a laymen’s theory I’d like to lay out there and I was wondering if anyone who is educated in geology could give me some feedback.
There are natural faults in Oklahoma that have been known to have caused earthquakes, the earliest of which that was recorded was in 1918, long before any “fracking” ever occurred.[2] Until recently the faults have been quiet but have become more active, as faults in the earth’s crust sometimes do, environmentalist believe that the fracking is somehow causing the faults to be more active, but I have another theory.
Area’s of geological instability such as volcanoes and hot springs are caused by geothermal uprisings in the magma beneath the earths crust. This is because of thermal convection, magma, like water, rises when it heats and sinks when it cools, so magma sets up vertical currents as it gains heat in the pressure near the earth’s core, and then sinks as it loses heat to the crust causing vertical currents circulating from the planets core to up to the bottom of the crust and back again.
In area’s where the magma rises it puts pressure on the underside of the crust and pushes magma up high enough in the crust to cause hot springs and volcano’s.
Because of plate tectonics, the earth’s crust is drifting slowly over these rising currents from east to west, that’s why for example the Hawaiian islands form a chain running from east to west, the Atlantic plate is moving slowly west over the rising current causing magma to be pushed up farther eastward on the plate which is why the islands progress in age from the oldest on the west to the youngest on the east. [3] The same is true of hot springs; rising magma beneath the earth’s crust pushes up into it and heats the water table.
There are a number of hot springs in Colorado and New Mexico, indicating that there is a magma uprising directly to the west of Oklahoma and Kansas [4] As the north American plate drifts to the west, it very slowly moves over that that uprising just as the Atlantic plate does beneath Hawaii.
The rising current of magma continually puts pressure on the bottom of the crust, like as if you were to put a jack beneath the ice of a frozen pond and use it to push upward on the ice causing the ice to bow slightly and crack.
I think that as the north American plate drifts slowly westward, the uprising in magma puts pressure on the underside of the plate farther and farther eastward, creating the energy witch is causing the previously less active faults under Oklahoma and Kansas to slowly grow more and more active, this is possibly why all such faults grow more and less active over long periods of time.
So if anyone actually reads that whole essay, tell me, am I way off base, or could there be some validity here?
[1] Environmentalists Fear Fracking Causing Earthquakes - Eagle Rising
[2] Oklahoma
[3] The Hawaiian Islands
[4] Colorado Hot Springs and New Mexico Hot Springs and Mineral Baths Discover New Mexico
