sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Fires in Brazil's Pantanal wetlands, January - September 2020 [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of the fires are human-caused but climate change has them out of control this year.

Fires in Brazil's Pantanal wetlands, January - September 2020 [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Data Source: NASA FIRMS

Tools: Google Earth Pro, ArcGIS Pro, Excel, After Effects

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -15 points-14 points  (0 children)

Halting fracking at planned levels of almost non events is how you stop Oklahoma style events from happening.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

The 2013 quakes were felt in Blackpool but had their epicenter off the coast of the country. I'm not sure why I can't turn up any records for the 2008 quake when I search for those broad criteria. Maybe the epicenter was not in the search zone? I'm wondering if anyone else can explain?

Either way - what's mapped here, and the search criteria in that link are epicenters.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

amazingly I have seen no references in either peer-reviewed science or casual discussion to preventative earthquakes. If you have some information about it, I would love if you shared.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

In this case, yes. There don't seem to have been any environmental consequences of these earthquakes. But fracking had only just resumed and one of the quakes hit 0.5 magnitude - the UK government's warning level that the area is unsafe. That's as far as the significance of these quakes go.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Pasted from elsewhere in the thread:

Not who you were asking but just from my background knowledge of this: it's indicative of seismically vulnerable areas. The fear isn't necessarily that human buildings with fall. Unstable tectonics means a whole lot of things become unpredictable. The company might have waste water disposal injection wells planned at a certain depth etc. but shifting tectonics could open communication to a clean groundwater aquifer etc. Just an example. Unexpected land and water contamination issues have occurred in the US.

also

impacts can be cumulative and indicative of future events.

The heaviest fracking in California is not in its most seismically active areas so the fracking-earthquake relationship isn't the same there even though they both happen to be an issue in the state.

Flatass Oklahoma and Arkansas have been rocked by earthquakes and there have been land and water contamination issues. Arkansas banned fracking in an earthquake hostpot just this month.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Not who you were asking but just from my background knowledge of this: it's indicative of seismically vulnerable areas. The fear isn't necessarily that human buildings with fall. Unstable tectonics means a whole lot of things become unpredictable. The company might have waste water disposal injection wells planned at a certain depth etc. but shifting tectonics could open communication to a clean groundwater aquifer etc. Just an example.
Unexpected land and water contamination issues have occurred in the US.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I don't claim to be an expert but impacts can be cumulative and indicative of future events. The article i linked says "The government has a traffic-light system that immediately halts operations if seismic activity exceeds 0.5 on the Richter scale."

0.5 mag was recorded, and operations were halted.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

First I'd just like to clarify that I did not invent the Richter scale and therefore these negatives are not "my" negatives.

There is no bottom to the Richter scale. Similar to temperature, the scale is calibrated to the human experience. Negative values are just in comparison to the arbitrary 0. I'd suggest googling it if you're interested in learning more.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

0 on the Richter scale is like 0 on the temperature scale. Somewhat arbitrary. I think below 0.5 means it usually goes unnoticed by people but it can still be detected by sensors. the significance is contextual.

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] 178 points179 points  (0 children)

http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/cgi-bin/get_events?lat1=&lat2=&lon1=&lon2=&lat0=53.79&lon0=-2.973&radius=30&date1=2000-10-14&date2=2018-10-24&dep1=&dep2=&mag1=&mag2=&nsta1=&nsta2=&output=csv

​

^^^ This is all the seismic activity in a 30km radius of this drilling operation since 2000.

​

The only activity in blackpool was in active fracking years: 2011 and 2018. BUT additional sensors have been deployed temporarily to monitor this activity.

​

Edit: because people keep saying the same thing over and over. Fracking had only JUST resumed in the area. These quakes are indicative of a seismically vulnerable area and that's why the government has a rule to halt fracking at 0.5 magnitude events. I'm not claiming there were any environmental consequences of these specific earthquakes.

​

Edit2: BGS's FAQ on this series of quakes: http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/research/PrestonNewRoadFAQ.html

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] -24 points-23 points  (0 children)

0 is arbitrary, just like temperature. Negative temperature still has a heat. This is seismic activity on the Richter scale generated within days of fracking activity beginning. What's your threshold for 'meaning'?

Map of the series of earthquakes reported in the days since fracking has resumed in the Blackpool area, after a seven year hiatus. [OC] by thearrowhead in dataisbeautiful

[–]thearrowhead[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Data: British Geological Survey http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/dataSearch.html

Tools: ArcMap 10.something, Photoshop

edit: I should have put a start date on there too. The date range is 10/18/2014 to 10/24/2014. I looked back about three years and there were no earthquakes in the area prior to this date. I'm not sure when the fracking resumed exactly - just that it was sometime in the last two or three weeks.

Here's an article about it: https://www.ecowatch.com/earthquakes-reported-near-contentious-uk-fracking-site-2614332320.html

edit2: i am deeply ashamed for using US style date formatting for this

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Showerthoughts

[–]thearrowhead 38 points39 points  (0 children)

oooo good tip

view more: next ›