When Jerry Lee Lewis had a “whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on,” as he sang the rock ‘n’ roll song in 1957, a lot of young people were enjoying it. Fast forward 57 years, and there is a whole lot of shaking going on in the oil patch from earthquakes induced by saltwater injection wells. However, there aren’t any people enjoying today’s rock rolling.

The epicenter of the earthquake activity is focused in Oklahoma at the moment, although Texas is getting its share of tremors in the Fort Worth basin. The anecdotal information on injection wells leading to earthquakes is piling up rapidly. The scientific community is engaged in sorting out what is really causing the earthquakes.

Earthquakes are measured on the Richter scale, which is a logarithmic scale. Generally, earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 (M2.5) or lower are not felt at the surface, but earthquakes of M3 or greater often are. Since the start of 2009, Oklahoma has jumped in the number of earthquakes M3 or greater, meaning that folks on the surface can feel the movement. From 2009 to 2013 the state has recorded 240 M3 or greater earthquakes – approximately 10% of the US total, ranking the state No. 2, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). California is No. 1 with 60% (1,486 earthquakes).

During 2011 an M5.7 quake occurred near Prague, Okla., causing damage. Art McGarr, head of the USGS Induced Seismicity Project, told E&P that there is, so far, no consensus in the seismological community concerning the cause of the Prague earthquake sequence. Some have argued that this earthquake sequence is natural, whereas others have proposed that these earthquakes were the result of wastewater injection in the vicinity of the earthquakes. More research is needed to resolve this ongoing debate among seismologists.

There are some folks near Marietta, Okla., that have no doubt that injection wells cause earthquakes. On Sept. 9, 2013, a disposal well began operations. Six days later, the shaking started. One woman’s flat-screen TV fell down, and her chimney collapsed after the well began injections. The injection well was shut down, and the shaking stopped.

Why is this important? Several groups opposed to hydraulic fracturing are blaming the earthquakes on fluid injection operations related to hydraulic fracturing activities. Saltwater injection occurs over extended periods of time, leading to a continued increase of pore pressure on faults that sometimes leads to earthquakes. The E&P industry questions why earthquake activity in Oklahoma showed such a dramatic increase beginning in 2009 whereas wastewater disposal well activities began several decades earlier. More research is needed to address this important question.

Seismological evidence points out that hydraulic fracturing operations have caused tremors large enough to be felt in only a few cases. Nearly all earthquakes from oil and gas activities are the result of deep injection of wastewater. There are about 150,000 disposal wells. Roughly 30,000 of these wells inject into undepleted formations, and a very small percentage of these induce earthquakes large enough to be of concern to the public. Scientists in industry, academia, and government agencies are attempting to understand better how deep injection induces earthquakes to find ways to solve this problem.

However, the negative publicity is one more strike against the industry. It is time that the industry focuses more technology to solve this problem – either reusing the water or reducing the shaking going on.

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