ECOWATCH - Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking,” is a process where shale and other types of impermeable rock are blasted open with water, “fracking fluid” and sand in order to access and extract oil and natural gas.
New research from scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) confirms that fracking leads to small, slow earthquakes or tremors, the origin of which had previously been unknown.
The study, “Tremor signals during fluid injection are generated by fault slip,” was published in the journal Science.
In the study, the research team looked at data from fracking performed using liquid carbon dioxide, rather than the usual wastewater, reported UC Riverside News. Abhijit Ghosh, associate professor of geophysics at UC Riverside and co-author of the study, pointed out that, since the carbon dioxide is a liquid, the study’s result would almost definitely apply to water-based fracking.