US geological agency calls for data sharing on fracking-induced tremors | Al Joumhouria | الجمهورية | Newspaper | Lebanon

"The US Geological Survey has called for more transparency and cooperation among “interested stakeholders” in order to monitor and mitigate the effects of fracking, a process widely blamed for the recent explosion of earthquakes in states like Oklahoma. A new USGS report, published in the journal Science, connected the increase of unnatural seismic activity in states targeted for oil and gas drilling -- including Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania -- with the injection of wastewater vital to the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking ... The number of earthquakes -- many of them fairly minor in magnitude -- reported last year in Oklahoma, for example, was four times greater than in 2013, according to the USGS report. In Ohio, a study published in October found that fracking had a direct connection to some 400 micro-earthquakes in the state. In March 2014, fracking was blamed for causing 77 earthquakes in the small Ohio town of Poland Township, a place that had no previous experience of seismic activity ..."