CrisJAGQ column (EN)

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 As a final part of my brief post, I will show few results that illustrate how fracking exhibits a significant correlation with the increase of the seismic activity in the surroundings. Given the fact that fracking is a common technique used in U.S. we have been able monitor fracking for a considerable amount of time. Then, we have been able to observe the secondary effects from fracking through the years. First of all, we focus on states such as Texas and Oklahoma where fracking has a strong activity, and various recent studies in recent years have pointed out that there seems to be a correlation between the seismic activity and the fracking technique. For example, there was a paper by scientists from the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas where they determined that the number of earthquakes that were likely induced by human activity, have been increasing in recent years (Fig. 1). On the other hand, if we take a look at the data taken in Oklahoma

  Taking a closer look to the technical aspect, just for people who feel a bit more curious about it, the hydraulic fracturing is a technique from the previous century that became successful in its modern stage (when horizontal drilling was incorporated) during the early 90's. While I will discuss how we can find such oil wells to perform oil extraction in a follow-up post, I will jump straight to the point and say that fracking was originally a technique by which we initially create a vertical well in the soil. However, in its modern version we employ a second drill, which is horizontal and comes just after the vertical drill is deep enough. Later on, the idea is to make tiny fissures in the shale, and then pump a liquid with desired properties for fracking. This liquid is a mixture that contains big amounts of water, as well as for example, sand, to keep the cracks open, and some unknown chemicals to increase viscosity and lubrication of the pipeline. Eventually, the natural gas

    I open an incoming series of publications with a topic I had read about some time ago, which is the natural gas and oil extraction by the hydraulic fracturing technique (dubbed as fracking). Despite of my education as physicist I will try not to get too technical and just explain the topic in such a way that is easy to understand, while being concise. First of all, my motivation to study around this topic is not to get the know-how, to extract oil and make me rich, but rather I got interested due to some old news about fracking. One of the first mandates from Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) when we took over the charge as president of Mexico, was to turn back the proposal about privatize the water in Mexico. An article (in spanish) in the La Jornada journal talks about it, based on a book by Dr. Alfredo Jalife-Rahme. The most frightening about this proposal was the idea of deviate the water coming from Panuco river by a project called "Monterrey VI". Even though the