22-Sep-2021 | Market Research Store
The University of California researchers have recently underlined method for a safe mode of dispensing wastewater. Generally, improper disposal of wastewater has been linked to rising earthquakes. The following reason triggered the research team to extending a valuable and workable hypothesis for current issue. Increased production of oil leads to higher creation of wastewater which is generally injected into the ground as a mean of avoiding polluting surface waters. However, previous generations of studies have led to increased penetration of earthquakes that leads to loss of property and life on a higher scale. The team further tested their newly found method in the largest oilfield in Western Europe at the Val d’Agri field in Southern Italy.
The team detected and recorded hundreds of smaller earthquakes after the landfill is injected with wastewater hours after the operation occurred. The team went on to establish a strong link between the earthquakes and the injection process from this experiment. The team gathered and created models that accurately produced seismic events that took place in the time frame of 1993 and 2016 on the same landfill.
The team further developed a model that a smaller amount of applied low injection rate could lead to not shaking of the ground after the processed couple of hours. Between January 2017 and June 2019, projections were tested in the field where seismic activity was highly regular. The team proposed that this method can be used to regulate earthquakes by other forms of activities such as carbon sequestration. This strategy is expected to reduce global warming as the team proposes putting the produced wastewater into the atmosphere rather than being injected into the ground. The team hopes that this study will pave the way for seismic related activities pertaining to fracking.
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