A sharp rise in earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past 100 years is likely the result of industrial activities in the energy-rich state, such as oil and natural gas production, a new study suggests. The paper by the U.S. Geological Survey, which singled out the state of Oklahoma, was released online this week and will be published in December’s Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. It concludes that the injection of massive amounts of the byproduct of oil and gas production—chemical-laced wastewater—deep into the earth likely induced the quakes. The paper dates wastewater-injection methods to the 1920s in Oklahoma. The modern-day process that produces the wastewater is known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which forces millions of gallons of water, sand and other additives deep into the ground to free up pockets of natural gas. Both the energy industry and scientists agree that fracking doesn’t directly cause […]