EARTHQUAKES AND HISTORY: HOW ARGUMENTS OVER HISTORY PLAY OUT IN ARGUMENTS OVER SHALE

I’m a historian. That means I usually deal with old events and dead people.

But when the earth started to shake in the mid-continent a few years back, I found myself trying to understand present events and people who are very much alive.

I wrote a book about the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12. When some people in Arkansas and Missouri started saying “That fracking is going to set off another Big One on the New Madrid fault!”, I wanted to figure out what in the world they meant.

What I found in scientific literature was a thoughtful set of investigations into how oil and gas production can in certain circumstances trigger quakes – but I also found that sensational claims by non-scientists about past earthquakes were surprisingly widespread on social media. Claims about earthquake history and claims about the history of hydraulic fracturing itself play a powerful role in current debates over fracking.

In two linked ways, arguments over history affect arguments over the science of our use of shale:

- First, both advocates for hydraulic fracturing and critics of the industry have been surprised by seismicity related to hydraulic fracturing. Many people initially discussed energy-related earthquakes as a new phenomenon. Further work in the history of induced seismicity, though, shows that seismic events triggered by underground injection and by oil and gas development more broadly have long been recognized. “New” is a claim rather than a simple statement.

- Yet discussions of fracking-related earthquakes take place on top of existing debates over the history of hydraulic fracture: advocates for hydraulic fracturing argue that the industry draws upon old and established techniques, while critics howl that “fracking” is new, untested, and unknown. Debates over the history of the technology are debates over the appropriateness and safety of shale oil and gas.

Internet alarmism about “the New Madrid Big One” might seem a long way from serious history of oil and gas extraction. Yet the history of mid-continent seismicity is at issue in current energy debates: rather than being cut-and-dried, the history of induced earthquakes and the history of fracking itself are players in debates over the future of shale.