Earthquakes

CNN is reporting that the small town north of Little Rock has had almost as many earthquakes since late September as it has residents. For the record, Guy has 549 residents and since Sept. 20 the town has had 487 measurable earthquakes. Arkansas is no stranger to seismic activities. CNN quoted Scott Ausbrooks, the geohazards supervisor for the Geological Survey, saying that last year the state had 39 measurable quakes.

Now, I don’t want to go all James Inhofe on this, but I was a bit skeptical to think that manmade activity could cause earthquakes. But then I did a little research and found that drilling of disposal wells near Derby, Colo., caused several quakes in the 1960s. So, it appears this is possible. In fact, there are other investigations about this same thing happening in Trinidad, Colo., about ten years ago and then in north Texas where disposal wells were drilled near fault lines.