| 8am Saturday: As anyone in Oklahoma will tell you, we woke up to a massive quake at 7:02am Saturday. Quakes had calmed down somewhat, in recent months. Several folks believe that Injection wells form the oil production industry are tied to the upsurge of quakes along fault lines. So, when the USGS finally posted up the quake details (about 15 minutes later), I checked on the preliminary info on the epicenter (rural Pawnee, OK). Google Earth desktop software put a pushpin at that precise location. Guess what also showed up in the screen view? Yep, an Oil production facility. Google Maps had an even better image resolution. I pulled up their map of the area and you can clearly see an active petroleum site. Last year, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission finally stepped up their oversight of injection wells. The Guthrie, OK area was the first focus of govt. intervention and limits on how much waste water (from pumping up crude oil) can be re-injected back underground, to push residual crude oil over to areas where it can be more efficiently collected by another pump. This is not fracking. This is an older technique which is generally safe, unless it's done near an unstable fault line. We fully expect the Corporation Commission to move into action to find out what petroleum-related activity has been done in the Pawnee area, in recent weeks. |  |
 The USGS preliminary mapping of the Pawnee Quake. |  Left: Google Earth's imagery of the epicenter (yellow pushpin). Above: Google Map's satellite imagery of the petroleum facility. |
| 9am Update: here's a screenshot of the aftershocks of the 1st hour after the 5.6 Pawnee Quake |  |
| 12pm Update: here's a screenshot of the 4 more aftershocks in the Pawnee area. The initial quake is still estimated at 5.6 on the Richter Scale, and 5 of the 7 aftershocks are above 3.0. |  |
