Fracking Caused the Virginia Earthquake, NOT!

The Writing Corner by Beth Wellington | Aug. 31, 2011 (Interview)

Hurricane Irene, and before that Virginia's August 23 5.8 earthquake with its epicenter only eleven miles as the crow flies, from Dominion Energy's North Anna nuclear plant in Virginia. That date, with life imitating art, the Twitterverse and other social media, spread news of a faster than the quake itself.

Unfortunately, the same media also spread misinformation, attributing the quake to fracking. The culprits included Alternet, Open ... Full Story »

Posted by Beth Wellington

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Subjects: Politics, Business, Sci/Tech
Topics: Technology, Science
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# Tweets: 0 (as of 2011-08-31)
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Posted by: Posted by Beth Wellington - Aug 31, 2011 - 12:58 PM PDT
Reviewed by: Patricia L'Herrou (review), Cathie Bird (review), Chris Finnie (review), Randy Morrow (review), Bob Herrschaft (review)
Content Type: Article
Edit Lock: This story can be edited
Edited by: Fabrice Florin - Aug 31, 2011 - 1:33 PM PDT

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Chris Finnie
3.6
 by Chris Finnie - Sep. 1, 2011

A more in-depth look at an issue that has, so far, received superficial, sensationalist, and probably inaccurate coverage by the media.

See Full Review » (11 answers)
Bob Herrschaft
4.0
 by Bob Herrschaft - Sep. 1, 2011

The article does well to include carbon sequestration along with fracking as a potential cause of earthquakes.I would just like to add that many geologists are not as reliably scientific as the one quoted here, since many of them are connected with institutions directly endowed by mining,oil and chemical companies.It would be interesting to see statistics on the percentage that are "company geologists".

See Full Review » (11 answers)
Cathie Bird
3.9
 by Cathie Bird - Aug. 31, 2011

It challenges hasty attempts by many to connect the dots between hydrofracturing and a recent earthquake in Virginia by exploring the earthquake with an expert and presenting facts.

The hasty and unsubstantiated responses to the Virginia quake that attempted to link it to fracking were troubling. Such shoddy journalism and misappropriation of scientific information does not help serious citizen scientists and activists who are trying to end destructive resource extraction strategies. I'm grateful that the author took up the challenge to question those responses.

See Full Review » (12 answers)
Patricia L'Herrou
4.0
 by Patricia L'Herrou - Aug. 31, 2011

the article refutes the claims of some early (primarily online) media responses to the recent large earthquake in virginia that it was caused by 'fracking' 160 miles from the epicenter. the refutation is in the form of an interview the writer had with geoscientist christian klose who studies influences of human endeavors on earthquakes; in the interview he offers the scientific information which rules out this earthquake cause coming from any known activity of human beings.

See Full Review » (4 answers)
Randy Morrow
3.5
 by Randy Morrow - Aug. 31, 2011

A “tiny” stress alteration… can set off an earthquake, because such faults are close to failure…. What’s tiny? According to Klose, a 1/10th ... More »

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