AGI – State Responses to induced Seismicity: The Webinar

Today, the American Geosciences Institute and a number of sponsors (AASG, USGS, AAPG, AEG  …), broadcast a 60-minute webinar spotlighting the state response to induced seismicity in OK, TX and OH; states that have seen dramatic increases in seismicity over the past decade. More than 350 people joined the webinar.

Great information – and graphics - from each participant documented how their state government was responding to an exponential increase in earthquakes powered by increased wastewater injection associated with oil and gas production.

Showcasing Oklahoma, most of the recent seismicity is the result of fluid pressure increase from injection of wastewater. Induced seismicity from fracking activities has been minor and limited to small magnitude events, e.g., M1 to M2, with rare M3. Oklahoma would like to build out a $4M seismic network to enhance seismic monitoring, and is now exploring funding opportunities. The situation in TX is more involved and complex and I’ll pass on trying to summarize Michael Young’s excellent presentation.

 

In Ohio, oil and gas production has increased exponentially since 2011 with most wells tapping the Utica Formation in eastern Ohio.  Similarly, injection volumes increased exponentially over the same time window with 32 million barrels of water injected in 2015. Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources has built an excellent public awareness and educational outreach program to address the concerns of Ohio citizenry.

Take-Away – Rising oil and gas production accompanied by wastewater injection will continue to produce induced seismicity. All three states are making inroads into reducing and controlling induced seismicity, but it’s not going away.

Webinar Date 4/14/2017

Panel participants

• Jeremy Boak, Ph.D., Director, Oklahoma Geological Survey, Mewbourne College of Earth & Energy, University of Oklahoma

• Michael H. Young, Ph.D., Associate Director for Environment, Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

• Steven Dade, Geologist 2, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management

For additional information: AGI-Induced-Seismicity .

 

3-years after Oso Landslide: US Senate & House introduce National Landslide Preparedness Bill

Washington National Guard at Oso on 26 March 2014

The Oso Landslide of March 2014 killed 43 people, destroyed 49 homes, caused millions of dollars in damage, and dammed the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River. When a second fatal landslide at Grand Mesa, Colorado, followed on the heels of Oso, waves of consternation rippled across the U.S reigniting concerns about the sudden and catastrophic collapse of unstable ground.  

As natural hazards go, landslides receive a fraction of the media attention that accompanies floods, earthquakes, severe weather, and wildfires. Why? Because unlike other natural hazards with large, even regional, areal footprints, landslides are local events. But across the U.S., landslides annually rival floods for damages and deaths; between 25 and 50 fatalities are reported annually and damages are in the neighborhood of $3 billion dollars.

Addressing landslides nationally. Two years after Oso, Congresswoman Susan Delbene (D-WA) introduced the National Landslide Loss Reduction Act (H.R. 4776) to establish the National Landslide Hazards Reduction Program through the US Geological Survey.

The bill’s objective: build a nationwide program to identify hazards and reduce losses through better assessment, coordination, and increased community education. This would require close collaboration between State Geological Surveys and the US Geological Survey to, “establish regional priorities for identifying, mapping, and assessing landslide hazards as well as develop and implement guidelines for geologists and geological and geotechnical engineers.” 

In introducing the bill, Representative DelBene said, “lawmakers need to do more to ensure we fund resources and research efforts to prevent future natural disasters from becoming national tragedies”.  Co-sponsors of H.R. 4776 included Arizona Representatives Ann Kirkpatrick and Raul Grijalva. On 27 March 2016, H.R. 4776 was referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

Unfortunately, the National Landslide Loss Reduction Act died in committee. But on 22 March 2017, Rep. Susan DelBene introduced a similar bill, the National Landslide Preparedness Act (H.R. 1675) before the House. On that same day, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced an identical bill, S.698, before the Senate. The National Landslide Preparation Act (S.698 and H.R. 1675), covers much of the same ground as the earlier bill and directs the USGS to provide grants to states, local, and tribal governments to study landslide hazards. Both bills are currently in committee: H.R. 1675 – Natural Resources, Science, Space, and Technology Committee; S.698 – Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 

We’ll keep you informed as the bills wind their way through the U.S. House and Senate. 

Posted 4/13/2017 mc

Lee Allison honored by Arizona Senate

M. Lee Allison

   Today, 12 April 2017, Sen. Gail Griffin read before the Arizona Senate a 'Death Resolution' honoring Lee Allison, former director of AZGS and Arizona State Geologist, for his service to Arizona. Lee joined AZGS in 2006 and remained there till his untimely death on 16 Aug. 2016. 

   Senator Griffin spoke eloquently of Lee’s contribution to Arizona and to the larger world. She singled out his efforts to work nationally and internationally with the geoinformatics community to pioneer open-source solutions to sharing geoscience data – digital maps, reports, geothermal-related data, and more – with any and all who could use and benefit from those data. 
 
   Lee’s wife, Ann Becker, was in the audience, as were AZGS’ Director Phil Pearthree and Assistant Director Randi Bellassai. 

For more on the life and times of Lee Allison:
 Dr. M. Lee Allison (1948-2016) Arizona Geology 
Down to Earth with: Lee Allison  Earth Magazine 
State Geologist's death 'devastating' AZ Daily Star

 
Images: Lee Allison (2015); Sen. Gail Griffin addressing Ann Becker (4/12/2017); Arizona Senate acknowledging Lee Allison in a moment of silence (4/12/2017)

DroughtView - A tool for scientists, ranchers & land managers

Twenty years of drought in the Southwestern US has resulted in mega-forest fires and depleted reservoirs, and challenged decision makers to find new approaches to managing a growing population facing a dwindling water supply.

And then along comes DroughtView, an interactive web application that leverages satellite imagery to identify areas impacted by drought. 

From an article in today UANews characterizing DroughtView:
   "It's a Swiss Army knife for land management out here in the Southwest," says Michael Crimmins, a UA Cooperative Extension associate specialist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
   "We can see where areas are 'brown,' and that will give us an indication of where there's fire risk. As fires burn, we can actually watch them on DroughtView," said Crimmins, also an associate professor in the Department of Climate Science, Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences.

Droughtview - https://droughtview.arizona.edu/ 
Posted 4/12  mc

Watching the sand flow

    For the past several years, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has hosted the AGU Cinema program at their annual Fall meeting in San Francisco. They posted some of 2016's best entries online. 

    The one that caught my eye was the 4-minute, "Drift: Measuring the Movement of Sand Dunes", produced by Josh Silberg and the Hakai Institute. Filming took place on remote and beautiful Calvert Island off the coast of British Columbia.  TWO THUMBS UP!

    From the authors, 'Sand dunes are constantly changing. Change is natural for a dune. If left to nature, they’re quite resilient and tend to recover from forces that erode away the sand. But we don’t know an awful lot about how these dunes recover, so Hakai Institute scientists are watching the dunes drift, one sand grain at a time.'
Posted  4/11/2017 MC

Bingham Canyon Mine Landslide - 4-years later

On 10 April 2013, Kennecott's Bingham Canyon copper mine situated in the Oquirrh Mountains of Utah,  experienced collapse of one wall of the open pit mine. In EarthSky's EARTH, Deanna Conners provides a short overview in, 'Today in science: Bingham Canyon landslide'.

From Deanna's account:  'The April 10, 2013, landslide at Bingham Canyon mine contained enough debris to bury New York City’s Central Park 66 feet (20 meters) deep, according to a University of Utah study. The slide happened in the form of two rock avalanches 95 minutes apart. The first rock avalanche included grayer bedrock material seen around the margins of the lower half of the slide. The second rock avalanche is orange in color, both from bedrock and from waste rock from mining. The landslide also triggered 16 small earthquakes. Photo by Kennecott Utah Copper, via University of Utah.'

Helping Desert Communities Find Hidden Water

'Helping Desert Communities Find Hidden Water' is an excellent vignette of the Santa Cruz River valley by the US Geological Survey. Among the illustrations is a video profiling USGS' 3D geologic model. The animation shows the distribution of shallow and deep aquifers and the contact between between basin sediment and bedrock. 

Annotated 3D model

And with regard to the benefits of this sort of integrated 3D modeling approach, “[Page’s] work confirmed our unexpected results that there are deep aquifers beneath the shallow ones in the microbasins,” Nelson commented. “The ADWR will use the results of the new USGS studies to create more effective water management strategies.”

Helping Desert Communities Find Hidden Water - https://www.usgs.gov/news/helping-desert-communities-find-hidden-water
Posted 4/5/17 FMC