Within hours of a cluster of earthquakes in southern Kansas, including the strongest in that state in recent memory, Governor Sam Brownback announced procurement and funding for a new portable seismic monitoring network.

The seismic monitoring devices were recommended by the Governor’s Task Force on Induced Seismicity in its final report last month (click here).   The state currently has no facility for monitoring earthquakes.  The report also included a seismic response plan.

 

According to the authors, “a key component of the plan is a formula for evaluating seismic events that will guide an appropriate response by the Kansas Geological Survey, Kansas Corporation Commission, and Kansas Department of Health and Environment.”

The Kansas Seismic Action Plan addresses the issue of earthquakes resulting from human activity, and especially the oil and gas industry.

The report stressed the distinction between hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) and the injection of wastewater from oil and gas wells into separate deep disposal wells. The amount of brine injected into such wells in Kansas topped one billion barrels (42 billion gallons) for the first time in 2012, and then again in 2013.

The plan provides background information citing national studies linking seismic activity to fluid injection; however, the task force had no conclusive evidence linking fluid injection to specific seismic events in Kansas, according to the report.

In a 2012 report, the United States Geological Survey stated there is “no evidence to suggest hydraulic fracturing itself is the cause of the increased rate of earthquakes in the midcontinent.”

A 4.8 magnitude temblor cracked walls, damaged some homes and rattled others Wednesday afternoon. It was felt far and wide. The quake, near Conway Springs, Kansas, was one of at least seven recorded Wednesday in Kansas and Oklahoma. There have been eleven more since then, according to the US Geological Survey.

The Kansas Geological Survey anticipates the monitoring stations will cost about $85,000 and will be operational in early 2015.

Rex Buchanan is the interim director of the KGS, and was a member of the Governor’s task force. We asked him about the new tools at his disposal, and the future of seismic monitoring in Kansas.

The Google Map in the graphic and video shows the approximate locations of Wednesday’s earthquakes.