Greetings from Arkansas,
For the past few months we have been experiencing a cluster of earthquakes on an almost daily basis. While most are in the 2-3.0 range we just had a 4.7 last night. This is in an area that is receiving quite a bit of gas well drilling and fracturing along with deep well injection of drilling by-products. Some of this activity is in the vicinity of the Little Red River which is a great trout stream and home of a former world record trout. I am wondering what effect all of this seismic activity will have upon the trout and the warm water fish in the other streams. Does anyone have experience with this phenomenon?
Grandado
Yellowstone is one of the most seismically active places in the world, and the trouts there seem to be holding their own.
The trout will be fine as long as quakes dont cause a major pollutant to enter the river or (worst case senario) the dam comes tumbling down.
The Eastern California Sierras are pretty seismically active and I have never noticed any problems with the fishing there. There are all kinds of weird chems pumped into the creeks and rivers from hot springs and the trouts and other fish seem to do very well.
I’m guessing trout and smallmouth only care about earthquakes when an object is dislodged in the stream releasing a bit of food for them unless something like a tree comes tumbling into the stream.
Grandado,
Are you thinking that the drilling of bore holes could trigger seismic activity? Does seismic activity create sound/pressure waves in water that affect fish? Do fish freak out like land animals?
This is just a SWAG (scientific wild azz guess), but I’m thinking your seismic activity is not unlike Yellowstone, since Arkansas also has hot springs. Although (another SWAG) I would think that if the drillers poked a hole through a previous barrier into a hot spring source - that is under pressure, that that pressurized water would try to come up the bore hole. I doubt the drilling would cause tremors? But what if there was a situation where there is an underground shift that is just waiting to happen, and the drillers weaken that last layer of rock that was keeping it at bay? Hmmmmm! Who knows. Heck, I can hardly remember if I even passed my high school science class dealing with shift & upheaval (diastrophism). Interesting question - My ramblings may be (ARE PROBABLY) way out in left field. No answers, just more questions myself, I suppose. We gotta have a geologist/ thermogeologist around this site some where?
Best regards, Dave who once poked a hole in the ground.
Fishdog54,
The drilling process in the area is referred to as “Fracing”. Once the hole has been bored a mixture of mud and “secret proprietary chemicals” are injected into the hole under great pressure to fracture the shale formations and release the natural gas contained within. There is talk of as many as 24 wells per section being the goal of the gas companies.
Grandado
Grandado,
Here’s a list of chemicals used in fracking. (Penna.)
Hope this helps.
Best regards, Dave S.