Since the beginning the year, there have been 488 magnitude 3.0 or greater earthquakes recorded in Oklahoma, USGS records indicate.
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Saturday’s natural disaster tied for the largest in the state. The number of earthquakes measuring 3.0 or higher reached 890 last year, followed by 375 this year through June 22.
The quake was one of the strongest ever to hit the state and prompted its oil and gas regulator, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, to order 37 disposal wells shut in a 725-square-mile (1,878-sq-km) area around Pawnee.
The oil/gas division is working with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has sole jurisdiction over disposal wells in Osage, and EPA will determine what action to take in that county. “However, we do know that many earthquakes in Oklahoma have been triggered by wastewater fluid injection”.
Oklahoma has been putting new restrictions on some of its thousands of disposal wells for more than a year to curb seismic activity.
The Sept. 3 quake, near a complex of oil-storage facilities, led the regulator to order the suspension of about 37 wastewater-disposal wells.
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A spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Matt Skinner, offered similar comments. Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill into law that provided such powers last April. Wells within ten miles of the epicenter will be closed in ten days. The Lafayette, Louisiana-based producer has until September 10 shut in its wells, according to the commission’s mandate. Damage is more likely with quakes at magnitudes of 4.0 and greater.
