New study: NE BC, Dawson-Septimus area in Peace region (where Vicky Simlik lives frac’d by Encana/Ovintiv et al) hit with about 1,500 frac quakes annually

Vicky Simlik’s (who started keeping notes on the ground movement, jolts, bangs, seismic events, quakes and damages in 2014) response to the often repeated phrase …”no damage reported and not felt at the surface” by frac quake enabling authorities:

High‐Resolution Imaging of Hydraulic‐Fracturing‐Induced Earthquake Clusters in the Dawson‐Septimus Area, Northeast British Columbia, Canada by Marco P. Roth; Alessandro Verdecchia; Rebecca M. Harrington; Yajing Liu, July 15, 2020, Seismological Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1785/0220200086

Abstract
The number of earthquakes in the western Canada sedimentary basin (WCSB) has increased drastically in the last decade related to unconventional energy production. The majority of reported earthquakes are correlated spatially and temporally with hydraulic fracturing (HF) well stimulation. In this study, we use waveform data from a new deployment of 15 broadband seismic stations in a spatial area of roughly 60×70km2⁠, covering parts of the Montney Formation, to study the relationship between earthquakes and HF operations in the Dawson‐Septimus area, British Columbia, Canada, where the two largest HF‐related earthquakes in WCSB to date, an Mw 4.6 on 17 August 2015 and an ML 4.5 on 30 November 2018, have occurred. We use an automated short‐term average/long‐term average algorithm and the SeisComP3‐software to detect and locate 5757 local earthquakes between 1 July 2017 and 30 April 2019. Using two clustering techniques and double‐difference relocations of the initial catalog, we define event families that are spatially associated with specific wells, and exhibit temporal migration along a horizontal well bore and/or multiple fractures close to wells. Relocated clusters align in two dominant orientations: one roughly perpendicular to the maximum horizontal regional stress direction (⁠SH⁠) and several conjugate structures at low angles to SH⁠. Comparing the two predominant seismicity lineations to regional earthquake focal mechanisms suggests that deformation occurs via thrust faulting with fault strike oriented perpendicular to SH and via strike‐slip faulting with strike azimuth at low angles to SH⁠. Local scale seismicity patterns exhibit clustering around individual HF wells, whereas regional scale patterns form lineations consistent with deformation on faults optimally oriented in the regional stress field.

The Complete Study Includes amazing visuals

New study detects thousands of earthquakes in B.C. Peace region, most linked to fracking, The researchers tracked 5,757 tiny earthquakes between 2017 and 2019 by CBC News, Aug 03, 2020, CBC News

B.C.’s Peace region is experiencing roughly 1,500 small earthquakes a year and most of them are connected to fracking operations, according to a new study.

Researchers set up 15 earthquake detectors around the region and recorded 5,757 tiny earthquakes that were otherwise undetected between 2017 and 2019.

“The vast majority of them seem to be connected with hydraulic fracking operations,” said Alessandro Verdecchia, one of the study’s lead researchers, during an interview on CBC’s Daybreak North. The research was published in the Seismological Research Letters journal in July.

According to the McGill University geophysicist, the connection was made by pinpointing the precise time and location of seismic events and comparing that data to information from fracking companies about their operations.

BC Hydro safety expert repeatedly warned bosses about fracking risk to dams, FOI documents show

“If we see some kind of connection in time and place between the operation and the occurrence of the earthquake we can associate an occurrence of the earthquake with the fracking operation.”

Detecting large magnitude quakes

Verdecchia says the researchers are trying to determine the largest magnitude earthquake that can be created by fracking in the western Canada sedimentary basin, a region in northeast British Columbia that includes the Montney Formation, a shale gas area that’s home to nearly 3,000 production wells. And, many families, farms, homes, livestock, pets, wildlife, small businesses, etc

“Large magnitude events can produce larger acceleration and velocity of the ground and, of course, can produce larger damages to infrastructure,” he said. And homes frac-quaked again and again and again; most fracs near Simliks by Encana/Ovintiv!

Refer also to photos below.

4.5-magnitude earthquake strikes near Fort St. John

In 2018, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake shook Fort St. John. No damage was reported, but people could feel it as far as Dawson Creek and Chetwynd.

Verdecchia says the largest magnitude detected in the western Canada sedimentary basin that’s been associated with fracking was a 4.6 event in August 2015. However, in China, there has been a magnitude 5.5 seismic event that’s been connected with a hydraulic fracking operation.

The other thing researchers want to understand is how far from the fracking these events can occur.

“This will be helpful for operators when they decide to start a fracking well, to begin operations, because they can more or less keep a distance let’s say from important infrastructures or populated areas,” Verdecchia explained.

According to the research so far, seismic events have been detected at a distance as far as five kilometres from the fracking operations.

A few of the comments:

Steven Scott
Tell those folks in the midwest States whose well water can now be set on fire that fracking doesn’t damage the earth …

Mark Mealing
But don’t worry,Peace River folks! Sure, you‘re being exposed to disturbance, damage & possible danger: but it’s all for the great cause of making some earth-abusing, oily people richer. Isn’t that wonderful?

Nancy van der Meulen
Fracking should be banned.

RanD Hadland
Reply to @Nancy van der Meulen: If the companies that are doing the fracking had an ounce of economic or ecologic sense they would have dropped the practice years ago.. I suppose it is necessary for the people to explain the thing to the companies, and with patience. Or we could as you say ban the practice.

Rachel Blatt
Just ask the farmers in Rolla, Doe River Clayhurst and Farmington about frack induced Earthshakes…

Refer also to:

2020 01 20: Landowner Vicky Simlik: Living frac’d in Farmington, NE BC. They frac you again, and again, and again, and again. The frac quakes harm you & your home again, and again, and again.

Quake Damages Photo B: Patio stones are lifting (similar damages experienced by Ann Craft from frac’ing by Quicksilver near Ponoka):

Quake C Photo: Siding on the house is buckling:

Quake D Photo: Interior home walls cracked and door ruined. No point repairing anything because the quakes keep undoing the repairs:

More damning photos at link.

2019 06 08: Vicky Simlik: Living in the middle of a gas field in Canada

2020 06 24: NEBC, Farmington and Tower Lake: Vicky Simlik and friend, living frac’d: Lands saturated (as happened to Campbells in Alberta); Iridescent greasy slime appearing (as happened to Ann Craft in Alberta); Vegetation dying (as happened at Ernst’s); Bubbling chemical aliens appearing on gravel driveway (never seen before).

2020 02 23: Scrubbadubbadub! Happy Frac’ing Holidays! Two earthquakes west of Alberta’s Fox Creek Frac Hub: 4.0M on Dec 25; 4.1M on Dec 30. Like a coronavirus, it spreads. Earthquakes Canada already scrubbed the 4.1M; nothing reported in the media or by AER, again

2020 01 20: Alberta: AGS confirms frac’ing caused 4.18M earthquake that rattled many homes from Sylvan Lake to Red Deer last March, knocked out power to 4,600 customers, and caused subsequent 3.13M and smaller cluster of quakes. “Complaints of damage from the event were received.” And a water well was damaged by frac’ing near Sylvan.

2019 04 03: Vesta Energy Ltd update on 4.6M fracquake near Red Deer March 4, 2019 that knocked out power to 4,600 Fortis Alberta customers, some reports of damage including to home driveway and underground electrical line.

2019 03 08: China Experiences a Fracking Boom, and All the Problems That Go With It

… The three earthquakes killed two people and wounded 13. More than 20,000 homes in three villages suffered damage and nine collapsed completely, according to a statement by the county. About 1,600 people were displaced….

2019 03 07: Nikiforuk: More Frack Quakes Rattle Alberta, Cause Deaths in China, Regulator shuts down operations near Red Deer. Thousands protest in Sichuan.

… Meanwhile residents of Sichuan province in southwest China marched and grieved after a swarm of industry-triggered earthquakes rocked that shale gas basin on February 25.

One fracked well set off a cluster of earthquakes with magnitudes as high as 4.9 that killed two people said one report, and at least four according to another.

The tremors also damaged thousands of buildings and left hundreds homeless in Rongxian county.

In response to the quakes, thousands of angry protestors descended on government offices to demand action.

The government told the protesters it would shut down fracking operations in the region.

Seismic experts have long established that the injection of pressurized fluids into the ground over short or long periods of time can reactivate faults and cause earthquakes.

Sichuan basin, the focus of China’s shale gas fracking industry, is a densely populated area and has a grim history of tremors induced by industrial activity.

One quake triggered by the filling of dam with water, set off a massive earthquake that killed 80,000 people in 2008.

In January 2017 an earthquake triggered by China’s fracking industry damaged 571 homes.

Over the last three years fracking has triggered more than 15,000 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging up to 4.9 primarily in the Zhaotong and Changning shale gas fields of Sichuan.

2018 11 22: Gas Companies Are Neighbours from Hell in This Rural BC Community, Farmington residents say tremors from nearby fracking feel like a truck crashing into your house at 60 km/h.

2018 04 27: Fracking may have caused South Korean earthquake – study, Researchers analysed data from November quake and found main shock occurred near fracking site

One of South Korea’s largest earthquakes on record may have been caused by hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – according to a study published on Friday in the journal Science.

A magnitude-5.5 earthquake hit the south-eastern city of Pohang on 15 November, injuring at least 70 people, temporarily displacing hundreds, and causing millions of dollars of damage.

2017 10 26: Oklahoma seismologist, Austin Holland, scolded by fracked academia (the dean!) for linking earthquake swarms to powerful oil and gas industry

2016 07 28: “Minimal Damage?” Frac waste quakes in Oklahoma keep rising, 4.1M felt 801 km away. Press not reporting it. Authorities diddle & daudle instead of hiring replacement for seismologist Austin Holland. What are Oklahoma authorities afraid of? Studying tens of thousands of frac quakes no one has time for?

2015 09 18: Alberta frack operation near Devon shattered home window; No wonder Edmonton-area residents are protesting fracing near their homes

2015 08 15: NE BC: Monday’s 4.5 Magnitude frac quake, felt from Pink Mountain to Fort St. John (180 km), ‘likely’ caused by Progress Energy, OGC confirms

2015 07 21: Andrew Nikiforuk: Fracking Industry Has Changed Earthquake Patterns in Northeast BC, Impact on groundwater and migrating gases mostly unknown

2014 11 28: 100,000 Netherlands Homes Harmed by Natural Gas Extraction, Over 700 private homeowners and 12 Groningen housing corporations suing Netherlands Petroleum Company (NAM)

And, between April 2009 and July 2011, in NEBC:

UK British Columbia Earthquakes from hydraulic fracturing or frac waste injection, 2nd UK quake caused deformation to well structure

Slide from Ernst speaking events

2012: Investigation of Observed Seismicity in the Horn River Basin

Two instances of wellbore deformation along horizontal sections were reported by one operator.

2000 04 01: Seismicity in the Oil Field

The gas field was discovered in 1956 and production began in 1962. Over the next 14 years, roughly 600×106 m3 of water, or 106 ton per km2, were injected. …

Beginning in 1976, a series of large earthquakes was recorded. The first significant earthquake occurred on April 8, 1976 at a distance of 20 km [12 miles] from the Gazli gasfield boundary. The earthquake magnitude measured 6.8.

Just 39 days later, on May 17, 1976, another severe earthquake occurred 27 km [17 miles] to the west of the first one. The magnitude of the second earthquake was 7.3. Eight years later, on March 20, 1984, a third earthquake occurred 15 km [9miles] to the west of the second earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.2. … Aftershocks occurred in a volume surrounding the three hypocentres. These earthquakes are the strongest of all the known earthquakes in the plain of Central Asia.

There was no clear relationship between the location of the earthquake hypocenters and any previously known active tectonic structures.

Closer investigation showed that the earthquakes had created new faults.

… In all these cases, the result of human interference was to change the state of stress in the surrounding volume of earth. If the stress change is big enough, it can cause an earthquake, either by fracturing the rock mass—in the case of mining or underground explosions—or by causing rock to slip along existing zones of weakness.

The situation in regions of hydrocarbon recovery is not always well understood: in some places, extraction of fluid induces seismicity; in others, injection induces seismicity.

 Even minor actions can trigger strong seismicity.

… The amassed data indicate that the Gazli earthquakes were triggered by the exploitation of the gas field. … In regions of high tectonic potential energy, hydrocarbon production can cause severe increases in seismic activity and trigger strong earthquakes, as in Gazli, Uzbekistan.

In regions of lower tectonic stress, earthquakes of that magnitude are less likely, but relatively weak earthquakes could occur and damage surface structures.

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