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Subscribe to RSSA large sinkhole has opened up near Sayre, Okla., and people in the region are wondering if it's related to a string of small earthquakes shaking the region.
The hole opened up a couple of days after one of the earthquakes about two weeks ago, the property caretaker told NBC station KFOR.
"Kind of spooky. You don't want to mess with it today," Jack Damron told KFOR.
See video and read the original story at KFOR.com
"Glad my house wasn't over it," neighbor Tony Bills told the station.
KFOR reported that geologists are dubious of a connection between the quakes and the sinkhole. Scientists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey said the sinkhole could have been caused by drought conditions, the dissolving of salt or rock formations, or draining of an old coal mine.
Also, Sayre is across the state from the area where the quakes have been centered. That area, about 40 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, was struck on Nov. 5 by a magnitude 5.6 quake, the strongest ever recorded in the state. There had been a 4.7 quake earlier in the day. The big quake caused minor damage to buildings and roads in the area.
And the shaking has continued since then. There have been a string of small quakes over the past week; the strongest was a 3.7 on Thanksgiving. There was a 2.7 on Tuesday morning.
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The earth has had enough of all of the BS being spread out, or it has gas.LOL
Yup. Really bad indigestion!
Its from all the drilling and then fracturing the bedrock to make the gas wells produce more!
"Kind of spooky. You don't want to mess with it today," Jack Damron told KFOR.
As if tomorrow, it's not going to be kind of spooky?
It is a gateway to hell and we are all going to be sucked in!
This is a serious hole in the earth. Fill it quickly. Put Obama in it he has put us in a Hole
Your screen logo is a caricature of Mr. Obama, and you mention him in your comment in relation to "holes". As you apparently have an obsession with the man, I suggest a good therapist to help you with a third hole that you failed to mention: the one in your head.
Good point Hans,
Beside Carl,
it was George the lesser that put us in this hole, Obama is trying to pick up the pieces, so to speak.......
@Derpy-At least you could have reversed the number and it would have been right. Obama has gotten us far deeper in debt with his bailouts than Bush ever did.
Kevin, please forward your data proving it's caused by fracking to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, as obviously you know more than their scientist do.
What the frack?!
Ummm..... The article is WRONG!!! Sayer is over by the Texas state line, not 40 miles NE of Oklahoma City where the earthquakes have been. Different parts of the state and very different geology. Not related. No fracking near Sayer. 40 miles NE of Oklahoma City - yes, there could be fracking.
Sounds like side efects of Fracking.
Off course, Fracking in ND, and Fracking in Tx, with Oklahoma being in the middle of this rocky and sandy shallow formations has nothing to do with it, right?
It is interesting to see that as soon as humans started Fracking, Oklahoma got the biggest Eartquake in their history ( 2-4 yrs later).
And now, this sink hole.
Remember, all these Fracking activities are new techniques, So the scientists are basically at par with doctors dealing with cancer today knowledge wise
Who knows, because nobody really knows, that is the reality!
Also, are this companies fracking to guidelines set, or are going to see another BP style disaster here soon.
Are the guidelines adequate for fracking ?
Are the oil companies following the guidelines according to the USGS ?
As I said, who knows because nobody really knows !
All the workers care about at the end of the week is the big paycheck they get, and the oil companies to extract and sale as much oil as possible, that's all it matters in that area of the world now.
Anything else is just nuisance, noise and chatter, and they don't want to hear about it !
joe..."It is interesting to see that as soon as humans started Fracking, Oklahoma got the biggest Eartquake in their history ( 2-4 yrs later)."
You might want to qualify that with "recorded" history. The land area now called Oklahoma has been around for many millions of years.
Next door to Oklahoma is Missouri. Why don't you read up on the quakes of 1811.
"Robert-2302414
@Derpy-At least you could have reversed the number and it would have been right. Obama has gotten us far deeper in debt with his bailouts than Bush ever did."
I think you are confusing the bailouts with the stimulus. Bush did the bailouts for the banks. Obama did the stimulus.
Do your homework corporate shill,try that JACKA$$ OBUNGLE and BARNEY FRANKENWEINER that is if you can read and comprehend but unfortunately the liberal left never will get it but think they know more than anyone else. CAN'T FIX RAMPANT STUPIDITY!!!!
falksdhfpoihjkajsdpo!!!! Why must you people insist OVER AND OVER again that the POTUS is responsible for spending money. Congress is responsible. Therefore, if you take both the bailouts AND the stimulus, I think you'll find a common denominator.
But I'm not really sure what this has to do with a sinkhole...I've been lured by a troll!
Wow, this is a no brainer. Take away liquid element(s) filling gaps between solids and the cavity created no longer may supports the ceiling above it. The result, earth quakes and sinkholes. This is the real reason for fracking. Companies taking petroleum out of the ground have known about the earth quake link for many years already and are simply downplaying it so as not to be made responsible for their destruction. Along with increasing the pressure in order to get petroleum out of the ground it aids in stabilizing the geology. The problem is that our government does not require them to disclose the compounds they inject into our ground (no lobby / government incest there). Look up Soil liquefaction in order to get an idea of how the process works. It is not a good example but it is a starting point.
To HS 321,
Were humans fracking in the 1800's quakes?
Who was doing the computer modeling for the USGS and the Oil Companies back then?
You are right, I need to go back to reading my history HS.
Robert 2whatever,
Never let reality cloud your beliefs when spouting Hannity and Limbaugh misinformation. Bush accumulated just short of 7 trillion dollars Obama is at 4 trillion. Of the Obama deficits 73 billion interest on the debt accrued by Bush and Reagan 1 trillion in lost revenue from the Bush tax cuts and about 700 billion from the Bush Bank bailouts. Conservatively you can credit 1.5 trillion of the 2009-2011 debt directly to Bush spending and tax cuts. That doesn't even touch on two unfunded wars and a 30% increase in defense spending which the GOP is fighting tooth and nail to maintain. Actual Obama increases fall somewhere between 1.75 and 2.5 trillion depending on how you want to do the accounting. This is a huge amount of money but it sure as hell is not 7 trillion dollars.
jkh
Would you please STOP you useless and senseless jibber about politics where it doesn't belong!! I personally am sick of it!!
You people would take a baby contest and say it was bush's fault if you favorite baby lost....
I really don't understand it....really.
touche...
If you take the oil and gas out of the ground, and in the process flush in a large amount of water in it to wash the ground away, you're going to have sinkholes. Don't believe the BS they're giving. Use common sense. If there's nothing left to hold from below, things are going to sink. Duh.
Yeah. The only question is what liquid went away to cause the hole.
I have a great headline, hope we'll see it soon: OKLAHOMA SINKS INTO THE EARTH! SCIENTISTS SAY IT WILL COME OUT IN CHINA!
Dave...thanks for letting us know that you know absolutely nothing about oil and gas production.
Actually it is related to coal mining in this area.
They have had the same problem with earthquake clusters in fracking zones in Kansas, PA, Virginia, and Colorado. However, it doesn't have to do with what they are taking out, but what they are putting in.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/U.S.-Government-Confirms-Link-Between-Earthquakes-and-Hydraulic-Fracturing.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/hundreds-arkansas-earthquakes-linked-natural-gas-injection-wells/story?id=13431093
http://www.rma.army.mil/cleanup/facts/deep-wel.html
^ + million percent. Living in PA I know full well the effects of fracking, but we'll keep doing it to get at the goo in the ground to power the world.
Why is it we still run on a 19th century discovery when it is the 21st century?
<blockquote>Why is it we still run on a 19th century discovery when it is the 21st century?</blockquote>
Because people want to bitch but not do their part. Look at Al Gore, for instance. For all his complaining about climate change he's got a carbon footprint bigger than most third world countries. Let me ask you this: how much do you recycle? How much do you reuse?
it's all good, they're gonna boost domestic output by 4 million barrels per day! hahahaha, so we can use even more for giant shiny monster dually cowboy wanna be wish i had a horse but can't afford it
Yeeha!
Sayre isn't 40 miles NE of OKC - It's out west-northwest, near the Texas line. The earthquakes have been occurring around Prague, which is about 40 miles or so east-northeast of OKC.
My thoughts exactly. Is the sinkhole in Sayre or Prague?
You guys this is due to the process known as Fracing, or for others Fracking. When you pump enough high pressure into the coal beds too release NG your going to see this as a common occurrence. Drill Baby drill is gonna kill a hell of a lot of US citizens, But what the hay! Some rich guy needs more money for something, anything, he just does! Greed is behind door number three here my friends, nothing but greed......Peace
I doubt very much a sink hole is caused by fracking. Fracking is done thousands of feet underground the sink holes occur from 10's to maybe a couple of hundred feet deep.
If you want to stop fracking, get the Government to allow new drilling to deposits that are much easier to access. The Government keeps listening to people who don't want a drill head withing 50 miles of their house but they want more gasoline in their car and more natural gas to heat their home. These same people want to lock up more people for more crimes, but won't tolerate any new prison near them. ... or new landfills despite making more garbage ... new dams, resevoirs and water treatment plants despite wanting more water. Many citizens of this country want what they want and don't want the consequences of getting it.
Sayre is about 150 miles to the West of the quake zone. No way they are related. Also there are no old coal mines in Western Oklahoma. They are in the Southeast part of the State. Who ever is reporting this needs a better education. Hopefully they did not get their education in Oklahoma, which I thinks ranks 48th in the nation.
If it is an old coal mine then it ought to be filled with earth before it gives away and causes a sinkhole. You cannot defy nature. Nature takes its own toll and has its own ways of taking it. Maybe the earthquake caused a sinkhole. The Green cover of the earth is being taken away and then it causes earthquakes, floods, storms, etc. We need to plant more trees and preserve nature. GOD BLESS AMERICA.
Kevin Valentine Moraes
Mira Road (Thane)
Drill baby drill!
Gotta wonder about the connection these earthquakes have to fracking.
The Oklahoma Geological Survey did a report on January 50 small earthquakes that occurred the night of January 20, 2011. The report says that the data showed these were shallow and unique. The majority of the quakes occurred within 3.5 km of a well in the Eola Field in Garvin County. The quakes began shortly after fracking began.
An article in Scientific American says the largest quake probably isn't due to fracking because generally smaller quakes result. However, they note:
From 1972 to 2008 only two to six earthquakes were reported per year in Oklahoma, and were often too small for people to notice. However, in 2009 nearly 50 earthquakes were recorded (pdf), and that number more than doubled in 2010 to 1,047, with 103 powerful enough to be felt.
and
This unusual seismicity has led some to wonder about increased activity in the area related to fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, which uses millions of gallons of fluid to break apart rock and release natural gas. The practice generates a considerable amount of waste liquid, which is often disposed of by injecting it into deep rock formations where it can lubricate faults. Hydraulic fracturing is common in Oklahoma, the nation's third-largest producer of natural gas, and has taken place there for decades (pdf). Now, with the discovery of natural gas deposits in other regions of the U.S., the extraction method is being used more widely and has raised concerns about its potential to contaminate drinking water.
O jesus, listen to your gut or listen to the establishment!
They have not shown where the fracking has caused small quakes but there is a connection with the injection wells. When the injection wells in Arkansas were stopped near Guy the earthquakes dropped in frequency. The "people in the know" at first denied there was a connection with those too but could only cover it up for so long.
"KFOR reported that geologists are dubious of a connection between the quakes and the sinkhole."
Those wouldn't be the same geologists that work for the oil companies would it? I'm a little 'dubious' of them!
The article said the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Do you think any geologist work for that government agency?
Eat More Kale!
How's she doing these days?
Why couldn't the quakes be a result of underground caverns collapsing? The drought and subsequent draining of aquifers via wells could have caused the water to have drained enough to remove the pressure that was holding up the caverns. Eventually, the collapsed ground would become evident at the surface.
Farmers that irrigate draw millions of gallons of water out of aquifers every year.
Cave structures are very tough. They are formed when the weaker stone is erroded away by carbonic acid (water with carbon dioxide dissolved in it). During the quakes of 1811-1812 very few cave systems in Missouri were damaged at all. Caves do collapse into sinkholes on occasion, but those caves die of old age I suppose you could say, but they have to collapse at some point, so I suppose a small quake could trigger a sinkhole, but it's result would be evident.
ha dont ya just love what corporate greed has done to this country ! keep sucking the oil , ng, diamonds, coal out of the earth ( YA THINK IT MIGHT BE THERE FOR A REASON ) and just watch what happens dumb a$$ money hungry a$$h o l e s . all the money in the world wont save you when the earth opens up and swallows you whole ! keep right on drilling ....
How can you blame this on corporate greed. Oil and Gas companies don't make us fill up our vehicles, boats, four wheelers, etc. I don't think it was them that made all the people travel for Thanksgiving across country to visit family or forced us to take the boat out fishing and joyriding. We the average people have all the blame because we use what they produce. Is drilling and burning oil and natural gas the cause to global warming and earth quakes etc. Maybe, if you are so concerned then instead of just bitching then do something about it and sell your vehicle and buy a bike, cut off the electricity to your house and start buying all of your supplies from local businesses only. If you refuse to be part of the solution you have no right to bitch.
Be a good experiment to take these commodities off of the futures market. Investment greed is what drives this monster. Take the gas pedal away. On a lighter note, 'Don't fool with Mother Nature".
Take a piece of glass, scratch it with a glass cutter, It will not break until you put enough pressure on the scratch. You don't have to have a 10 year degree in geology or earth sciences to apply simple logic.
?? I'm not laying all my problems at big business' feet, but c'mon... They aren't innocent in this. They choose thier oil fields and their drilling methods. They choose to go for record breaking profits despite the fact that their customers are going broke. They choose to say they will clean up messes and then cut and run at the first chance they get. So, kjunme, how about you sell your stuff and pay for more oil so they can buy more toys...you know...the ones you used to have
If all of this is from hydro-fracturing, the drilling company would be faced with law suits. It's a no brainer for them to say: It wasn't caused because of us.
What if it was caused by the farmer that owned the land drawing water out of an aquifer for irrigation?
duh! of course it is, hold on!
Why is everyone blaming the oil companies? Don't you realize? It's god passing judgement on these people for being so incredibly backwards. The end is nigh!
and the earth opened her mouth
Its the Mole People, seriously, these sink holes look REALLY circular. That isn't something that just happens. And yes, WE ARE DOOMED!!!
Farkin Fracking fools have sold their souls and their land to the devil.
It doesn't take geologist to figure out the quakes and that hole are very much related. Quakes are caused by the subterranean plates shifting thus leaving nothing under the surface and then the surface just sinks. If there isn't a foundation . . . I am not a geologist, but common people, this stuff was taught in elementary school science. If something is removed from under the surface, something else has to give.
It depends upon the location of the plates. Just because an earthquake occurs and a sinkhole opens up doesn't mean the two are automatically related. If the earth that "sank in" isn't on the plates affected, then the two incidents are not related. Also, plates don't shift and simply leave a hole. They slide under or over each other and can cause upheaval, such as those creating tsunamis or "hills" in the land structure or yes, they can slide under which would, at the opposite, possibly cause the land to sink, but, it wouldn't be a sinkhole but like the lowering of a shelf or a larger track of land in a line of sorts.
"I am not a geologist.." You didn't need to state the obvious.
Gravity sucks.
Fracking huh? I'm just waiting for people to say it's God's vengence or Obama's fault or whatever the favorite blame-of-the-month is now.
I know what it is! It's caused by all these people jumping on the same bandwagon at the same time! If geologists go look they'll find a bandwagon at the bottom of that hole.
I think if you go back to the Drill Baby Drill, all this exploration of are planet not Knowing what down there it making for a good SCI-FI movie in the making there a big reservoir under them parts I wounder if this is the start of a big lake that will cove five to six states, just like FT. Smith drilling the Elevator shaft an the ground gave way abandon Coal Mines whoops an they forgot they were there ? an we have all these brightest people well educated telling us there no problems ( Progressive Liberal an or Rhinos), just make you wounder where the next hole will open up, maybe right under your house. good day
Drill baby drill! Yeah, keep drilling, and see what happens! More of the same, more earthquakes, sinkholes, etc. But we have to keep feeding the machine, dont we?
When we went to the Yucatan peninsula a few years back, our tour bus stopped in an area heavy with sink holes. We stopped and swam in one that was over 100 feet deep. That was just to the water table. The water was another 70 plus feet deeper. The diameter of the hole was about 70 feet.
What we discovered about sinkholes in that region, is there were ALOT of them. A topographical map showed that they formed a "ring" around the meteor crater that hit the gulf of Mexico eons ago...( aka, the "dinosaur killer").
Typically, areas of rifts caused by seismic activity, are revealed as striations in the soil.....ridges where the soil is subducted, or long "ditches" caused by separation of the earth. I would be curious to see what USGS might find if they begin "mapping" these occurances.
If this is the result of large scale fracing, we should be able to see more evidence over time. as these sinkholes will continue to appear...more than likely, around the perimeter of the drilling site. This would be the smoking gun.
Of course, given the history of sinkholes, I think the process of elimination might be the way to go. If this area is not a dormant caldera, if this area is not in an impact area....what else is there?
To be honest, I think fracing is bad business. Even if you decide not to sell your land rights for fracing, there is no promise that a neighbor's decision, who did sell his rights, won't affect your water and land eventually.
Here in limestone rich PA, we have lots of sink holes. Fluctuating water tables and lots of rain liquifies the soil, filling in voids caused by limestone cave pockets. Earthquake tremors could easily assist the soil in finding it's way to the voids.
That and we have lots of Mole People.
EAT MORE KALE!
i'm not a geologist, but i'm not a big fan of coincidence, either.
do mole people eat kale?
I hope the mole people eat kale, cuz I am not eating that cr- ... er ... stuff.
Blame the mining corporations & their CSG drilling.