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IMAGE: Manoochehr Shirzaei, an associate professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech. Photo by Steven Mackay. view more
Credit: Virginia Tech
In a newly published paper, Virginia Tech geoscientists have found that shallow wastewater injection not deep wastewater injections can drive widespread deep earthquake activity in unconventional oil and gas production fields.
Brine is a toxic wastewater byproduct of oil and gas production. Well drillers dispose of large quantities of brine by injecting it into subsurface formations, where its injection can cause earthquakes, according to Guang Zhai, a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Geosciences, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science, and a visiting assistant researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.