Did a Mexican Geothermal Power Plant cause the Easter 2010 Earthquake?

[PPI Tim]

Hey Guys,
I read this article in Popular Science and it made me wonder. Could have a Geothermal Power Plant in Baja California, Mexico caused the 7.2 Easter Earthquake? If they ever find out this is true, God help us all.
Here are the links, you connect the squares.

This is the link to the article on Geothermal power plants causing earthquakes.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/does-geothermal-power-cause-earthquakes

This is the link to the earthquake map show where the earthquakes happened.
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/116-33.html

This is the link to the Geothermal Power plant in Mexico
http://www.powerte.com/projects/project.aspx?id=243

[ljiljanac]

Wow, Tim....I think I'm thinking...uh.....yah.   

[PPI Karl]

Do you know if the Mexicali plant is specifically using enhanced geothermal, the technique that triggered the quakes in Basel, Switzerland?

[PPI Tim]

From what I understand about Geothermal power plants, water is routinely injected into the earth in places where geothermal activity is the closest to the surface. The water is heated, turned into steam and piped back to the surface to spin turbines for generators. Since this was during a holiday(Easter) and it was located in Mexico(environment codes not enforced), could have someone have shot more water down then they should have?

[ljiljanac]

It seems to me that shooting water into areas were molten rock mixed with metals creates an explosive condition in limited spaces.  If I am right, which I'm pretty sure I might be, who thought that would be a good idea? 

[PPI Brian]

Hi Tim,

The USGS released a report that supports your theory:

Revealed: Recent quakes in US 'almost certainly man-made'

A US Geological Survey research team says a remarkable increase in earthquake occurrence in the US in the past decade is ?almost certainly man-made.?
?According to the study by USGS, oil and natural gas extraction activity have possibly provoked a series of recent earthquakes from Alabama to the Northern Rockies.

However, USGS authors did not estimate a direct cause-effect relationship between oil and gas activity and earthquakes.

?It remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production,? says the abstract for USGS study, published by the Seismological Society of America.

However they gave a possible explanation for it. They relate it to drilling, which requires the disposal of millions of gallons of wastewater for each well. The number of wells drilled has increased over the past decade.

A recent series of earthquakes in north-eastern Ohio, the latest and largest being on New Year's Eve, has prompted that state's Department of Natural Resources to close or suspend development by natural gas drillers of five deep wastewater disposal wells pending an investigation into well impact on increased seismic activity in the area.

Earthquakes have been linked to so-called injection wells in other states. For example, Arkansas imposed a permanent moratorium on disposal wells in an approximately 1,200 square-mile area, due to enhanced seismic activity near the Fayetteville Shale.

?The acceleration in activity that began in 2009 appears to involve a combination of source regions of oil and gas production, including the Guy, Arkansas, region, and in central and southern Oklahoma. Horton, et al. (2012) provided strong evidence linking the Guy, AK, activity to deep waste water injection wells,? the study says.

The research team led by USGS geophysicist William Ellsworth, says the frequency of earthquakes began rising in 2001 across a broad swath of the country between Alabama and Montana and culminated ?in a six-fold increase over 20th century levels in 2011.?

Meanwhile, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, shale gas production grew, on average, nearly 50 per cent a year from 2006 to 2010.
http://rt.com/usa/news/quaks-us-man-oil-473/

[PPI Karl]

I remember reading about this.  It's very disturbing if true.  And, it probably is.

[PPI Tim]

Don't mind the madman in the Library. His thoughts fly like birds.
Thanks Brian.
Now I wonder, with all the Frakking for oil that is going on, will there be a rise in earthquakes?

[PPI Debra]

They have had the same problem in Arkansas with fracking causing quakes.... and contaminating the ground water.

[PPI Tracy]

Very unsettling.  So much we don't know.  Even more that we probably don't want to know.