--- description: We already know that hydraulic fracturing—the process of injecting millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep into the earth to exploit the natural gas... title: New Study Calculated How Serious Fracking-Induced Earthquakes Can Be image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c09c5d8dbc3580a/6998b61e1500fb3d8baa478a/fracking_quakes.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Science](/section/science/) # Fracking: Sizing Up the Quakes That Come from Hydraulic Fracturing by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Dec 12, 2011 6:09 PM CUT  A house damaged in a pair of earthquakes that struck Sparks, Okla., Nov. 6, 2011, in less than 24 hours. Scientists have connected fracking to quakes, but it's less certain how severe they will be. A house damaged in a pair of earthquakes that struck Sparks, Okla., Nov. 6, 2011, in less than 24 hours. Scientists have connected fracking to quakes, but it's less certain how severe they will be.Sue Ogrocki / AP by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Dec 12, 2011 6:09 PM CUT We [already know](http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/11/08/did-fracking-help-cause-oklahoma-earthquakes/ "undefined") that hydraulic fracturing—the process of injecting millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep into the earth to exploit the natural gas trapped inside rock—can likely help cause earthquakes. The British energy company Cuadrilla Resources [admitted earlier this year](http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/fracking%5Fcaused%5Fbritish%5Fquakes%5F1.html "undefined") that fracking operations caused a series of small quakes in Lancashire, and scientists have raised concerns about an [unusual number and strength of quakes](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=did-fracking-cause-oklahomas-largest-recorded-earthquake "undefined") that hit this fall in Oklahoma, a state that has long embraced fracking. Environmentalists are already worried about the risk of [water contamination](http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/12/09/contaminated-epa-says-fracking-likely-polluted-groundwater/ "undefined") and [air pollution](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/28/fracking-epa-air-pollution-natural-gas-drilling%5Fn%5F912564.html "undefined") from fracking and shale gas drilling—do we need to fear quakes as well? more (**MORE:** [**Could Shale Gas Power the World?**](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2062456,00.html "undefined")**)** Probably not, at least according to a new model presented at the [annual meeting](http://sites.agu.org/fallmeeting/media-center/newsroom-6-dec/ "undefined") of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco last week. Arthur McGarr, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in California, presented a paper that outlined a method to calculate the highest magnitude earthquake that fracking might be able to induce. McGarr and his team studied several cases of earthquakes apparently induced by fracking and other methods that involved injecting fluid into the ground, including a shale gas operation in Oklahoma and a geothermal-energy project in Switzerland. The researchers found a proportional relationship between the volume of fluid injected into the ground and the strength of the resulting quake, as McGarr [told _Nature_](http://www.nature.com/news/method-predicts-size-of-fracking-earthquakes-1.9608 "undefined"): --- > “” --- It’s worth noting that 20,000 cubic meters of fluid would be about 5 million gallons—that’s roughly how much fluid is [used in an average frack](http://www.hydraulicfracturing.com/Water-Usage/Pages/Information.aspx "undefined") in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale. So it seems unlikely that fracking for shale gas would cause severe quakes. But McGarr’s formula only calculates how strong a frack-induced quake would be—not how likely it is to occur. That would depend on other factors, including the depth of the frack and the strength of the rock layer. But probability is what we really need to understand in order to calculate the local risk of fracking—and that’s not something we have yet. Still, while frack-induced quakes might be a worry, the growth of shale gas has bigger environmental concerns. **MORE:** [**Contaminated? EPA Says Fracking “Likely” Affected Groundwater**](http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/12/09/contaminated-epa-says-fracking-likely-polluted-groundwater/ "undefined") _Bryan Walsh is a senior writer at_ TIME_. Find him on Twitter at_ [_@bryanrwalsh_](http://twitter.com/#%21/bryanrwalsh "undefined")_. You can also continue the discussion on_ TIME’s[_Facebook page_](http://www.facebook.com/time "undefined") _and on Twitter at_ [_@TIME_](http://twitter.com/#%21/TIME "undefined") New Study Calculated How Serious Fracking-Induced Earthquakes Can Be ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7220044/fracking-sizing-up-the-quakes-that-come-from-hydraulic-fracturing/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7220044/fracking-sizing-up-the-quakes-that-come-from-hydraulic-fracturing/"},"headline":"Fracking: Sizing Up the Quakes That Come from Hydraulic Fracturing","datePublished":"2011-12-12T18:09:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-18T15:05:19.614Z","description":"We already know that hydraulic fracturing—the process of injecting millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep into the earth to exploit the natural gas...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7220044/fracking-sizing-up-the-quakes-that-come-from-hydraulic-fracturing/","keywords":["earthquakes","fracking"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c09c5d8dbc3580a/6998b61e1500fb3d8baa478a/fracking_quakes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c09c5d8dbc3580a/6998b61e1500fb3d8baa478a/fracking_quakes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"fracking_quakes","caption":"A house damaged in a pair of earthquakes that struck Sparks, Okla., Nov. 6, 2011, in less than 24 hours. 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