In Oklahoma, water, fracking – and a swarm of quakes

Through Carey Gillam NORMAN, Oklahoma (Reuters) – Seismologist Austin Holland needs to start an earthquake. From his office just a few feet under the earth's surface – a basement at the College of Oklahoma in Norman – Holland, who tracks quakes for the Oklahoma Geological Survey, is digging into a complex riddle: Is a dramatic upward thrust within the dimension and choice of quakes in his state related to oil and fuel production process? As part of his vast-ranging research, Holland is proposing to inject pressurized water into porous rock in an area already known to be earthquake-prone, to see whether or not injections of oil business wastewater are contributing to a "swarm" of earthquakes rocking the state. "It is a dramatic new charge of seismicity," Holland mentioned in an interview.