Not to worry, your priceless sculptures will indeed remain safe. The process of hydraulic fracturing does not pose a high risk for seismic activity, especially one that would be capable of causing any structural damage. Hydraulic fracturing occurs between 4,000-8,500 feet deep below the ground, on average over a mile away from the surface. The US Geological Survey, recently released Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies, a study done by the National Research Council, 2012 acknowledging that seismic activity has increased in general over the last hundred years, but there little evidence of a direct connection linking natural energy recovery with earthquakes. (National Research Council, 2012) The National Academy of Sciences supports the US geological Survey’s findings. You can take a look at the report in brief here, or check out some key factors that we have highlighted below:

  • Of all the energy-related injection and extraction activities conducted in the United States, only a very small fraction have induced seismicity at levels noticeable to the public. (only 1 in over 35,000 hydraulic fracturing wells)
  • Conventional oil and gas development extracts oil, gas, and water from pore spaces in rocks in subsurface reservoirs. Incidences of felt induced seismicity from conventional oil and gas development appear to be very rare.
  • Shale formations may contain oil, gas, and/or liquids. Shales have very low permeability that prevent these fluids from easily flowing into a well bore, and so wells may be drilled horizontally and hydraulically fractured to allow hydrocarbons to flow up the well bore. Hydraulic fracturing to date has been confirmed as the cause for small, felt seismic events at one location in the world.
  • Four federal agencies—the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey—and several different state agencies have regulatory oversight, research roles and responsibilities relating to different parts of the underground injection activities associated with energy technologies.