Humans Activities and the Environment
This process involves injecting pressurized liquid into underground rock to release oil and gas.
What is hydraulic fracturing (fracking)?
This energy resource, often found in shale rock, is commonly extracted using hydraulic fracturing.
What is natural gas?
This is the shaking of the ground caused by sudden movement along faults in the Earth’s crust.
What is an earthquake?
The Earth's outer shell is broken into large slabs called these, which slowly move over the mantle.
What are tectonic plates?
Following fracking-induced earthquakes, governments monitor operations to reduce harm to people, infrastructure, and the environment; this general term describes such oversight.
What is regulation?
Fracking can cause this natural hazard when underground pressure disturbs existing faults in the Earth.
What are earthquakes?
Hydraulic fracturing works by injecting this substance, usually mixed with chemicals and sand, deep underground at high pressure.
What is water (fracking fluid)?
Researchers found that fracking can trigger earthquakes because injected fluids increase this underground pressure, which can reactivate dormant faults.
What is pore pressure?
The zones where tectonic plates meet are called this, and they are often associated with earthquakes and volcanic activity.
What are plate boundaries?
After fracking operations in northeastern BC triggered earthquakes, regulators introduced limits on this aspect of hydraulic fracturing to reduce seismic risk.
What is injected fluid volume (or frack water volume)?
This term describes earthquakes that are triggered by human activities such as fracking or wastewater injection.
What is induced seismicity?
Fracking increases the ability of oil or gas to flow by breaking apart this underground material.
What is rock (or shale rock)?
A magnitude 4.6 earthquake in 2018 near this northeastern British Columbia city became the largest fracking-induced event in the province and temporarily halted operations.
What is Fort St. John?
This measure describes how much a rock or fault has been stretched, compressed, or twisted over time due to tectonic forces before it eventually breaks.
What is elastic strain?
To reduce risk near communities and critical infrastructure, regulators may establish these areas where fracking is not allowed.
What are no-fracking zones?
Scientists found that areas near this major Canadian mountain range have higher tectonic strain rates and more fracking-related earthquakes.
What are the Rocky Mountains?
In northeastern British Columbia, large-scale fracking operations began in 2005 in this major natural gas development region.
What is the Montney Formation (Trend)?
Following the magnitude 4.6 fracking-related earthquake in 2018 near Fort St. John, regulators introduced stricter seismic monitoring and this colour-coded system that requires companies to slow or stop operations when earthquakes reach certain levels.
What is the Traffic Light Protocol?
Scientists found that even small volumes of high-pressure fluid can trigger earthquakes in areas where these underground forces are already concentrated along faults, showing that human activity interacts with natural tectonics.
What is pre-existing tectonic stress?
After rising earthquake activity in northeastern BC, regulators introduced rules that not only limit fluid injection but also require operators to continuously track seismic events, demonstrating the use of this approach to manage hazards in real time.
What is adaptive management?
Research in northeastern British Columbia found a strong relationship between earthquake magnitude and this operational factor in fracking.
What is the volume of injected fracking fluid (frack water)?
Scientists found that the likelihood of fracking-induced earthquakes increases in regions with higher levels of this slow geological process in tectonic plates.
What is tectonic strain (or deformation rate)?
The 2018 magnitude 4.6 earthquake near Fort St. John highlighted how cumulative high-pressure fluid injections over years can reactivate these normally quiet geological features, causing significant seismic events.
What are dormant faults?
The Montney region and areas east of the Canadian Rockies experience frequent fracking-induced earthquakes because they sit on these types of faults within a plate, which are sensitive to both natural and human-induced stress.
What are intraplate faults?
After major fracking-induced earthquakes in northeastern BC, regulators focused on this type of strategy, which seeks to avoid high-risk areas entirely rather than just monitor or limit operations.
What is hazard avoidance?