This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
Two 4.2-Magnitude Earthquakes Rattle Northern Oklahoma in a Single Evening
Two 4.2-magnitude earthquakes struck near Enid in northern Oklahoma Sunday at 5:17 p.m and 9:40 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). They are the largest recorded this year so far and even felt in neighboring Kansas.
The large quakes were followed by two smaller ones around the same area early Monday. The first was a magnitude 2.7 followed by 12:35 a.m. then magnitude 2.6 at 6:16 a.m.
At least one home in Breckinridge was damaged by the first earthquake. According to Enid News, the home had major brick separation from doors and windows and other structural damage.
The 4.2-temblors are the largest in the state since August 2017, when a swarm of earthquakes, including a magnitude 4.2, hit the central part of the state. There were five quakes of 4.0 or greater last year.
A tremor at that magnitude feels like a heavy truck striking a building, USGS describes on its website.
Oklahoma has seen an alarming uptick in seismic activity that's been linked to the injection of saltwater produced from oil and gas drilling activities into disposal wells.
State regulators have directed oil and gas producers in the state to close wells or reduce wastewater injection volumes. The regulations have worked to a certain degree. While the Sooner State has dropped from two earthquakes per day to fewer than one per day, some of the post-regulatory quakes have been large and damaging. Two big ones happened in 2016: the 5.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Cushing, one of the largest oil hubs in the world, and a 5.8 that hit near Pawnee, the largest ever recorded in the state.
Tulsa World reported this week that if oil and natural gas prices begin to soar, wastewater injection could climb 40 percent more under a regulatory cap.
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Anita Desikan
The Trump administration is routinely undermining your ability — and mine, and everyone else's in this country — to exercise our democratic rights to provide input on the administration's proposed actions through the public comment process. Public comments are just what they sound like: an opportunity for anyone in the public, both individuals and organizations, to submit a comment on a proposed rule that federal agencies are required by law to read and take into account. Public comments can raise the profile of an issue, can help amplify the voices of affected communities, and can show policymakers whether a proposal has broad support or is wildly unpopular.
Picture this: a world where chocolate is as rare as gold. No more five-dollar bags of candy on Halloween. No more boxes of truffles on Valentine's day. No more roasting s'mores by the campfire. No more hot chocolate on a cold winter's day.
Who wants to live in a world like that?
By Lisa Wartenberg, MFA, RD, LD
Honey and vinegar have been used for medicinal and culinary purposes for thousands of years, with folk medicine often combining the two as a health tonic (1Trusted Source).
Trending
By Elizabeth Streit, MS, RDN, LD
Paprika is a spice made from the dried peppers of the plant Capsicum annuum.
By Tracy L. Barnett
Sources reviewed this article for accuracy.
For Sicangu Lakota water protector Cheryl Angel, Standing Rock helped her define what she stands against: an economy rooted in extraction of resources and exploitation of people and planet. It wasn't until she'd had some distance that the vision of what she stands for came into focus.
Trending
By Patrick Rogers
"I'm really into trees," said the sculptor Hugh Hayden. "I'm drawn to plants."