Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies (2012)Board
on Earth Sciences and Resources Each report is produced by a
committee of experts selected by the Academy to address a
particular statement of task and is subject to a rigorous,
independent peer review; while the reports represent views of
the committee, they also are endorsed by the Academy. Learn more
on our expert consensus reports. Report in Brief >> In the past
several years, some energy technologies that inject or extract
fluid from the Earth, such as oil and gas development and
geothermal energy development, have been found or suspected to
cause seismic events, drawing heightened public attention.
Although only a very small fraction of injection and extraction
activities among the hundreds of thousands of energy development
sites in the United States have induced seismicity at levels
noticeable to the public, understanding the potential for
inducing felt seismic events and for limiting their occurrence
and impacts is desirable for state an