Environmental Research Foundation, October 2, 2009

CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND EARTHQUAKES IN NEW JERSEY

By Peter Montague

It is well-known that pumping liquids into the ground under pressure can trigger earthquakes, which are called "induced earthquakes."

Here are the closing paragraphs of a story from the New York Times April 14, 2009):

"Leonardo Seeber, a research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, is not sure about the Sichuan earthquake, but he believes that scientists and officials need to take more account of the risk of induced earthquakes....

"In the coming years, the proposed strategy to reduce global warming by capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and pumping it into the ground could create new earthquake risks.

"So far, experiments in this kind of carbon sequestration have focused on whether it will work to keep carbon dioxide out of the air for centuries. But Dr. Seeber said this technology 'has huge implications for triggering earthquakes.'"

Is New Jersey subject to earthquakes?

According to the Trenton Times Feb. 17, 2009: two small earthquakes struck North Jersey within 2 weeks of each other during February, 2009. The first struck Feb. 2 with a magnitude of 3.0 on the Richter scale and the second Feb. 14 with a magnitude of 2.4.

The New York Times Feb. 3, 2009, said the quake on Feb. 2 had its epicenter in Morris County and was felt in Rockaway, Dover, and Morris Plains. The Times said, "In Dover, N.J., near the quake's epicenter, Francis Rodriguez was playing cards with a friend when, she said, 'it felt like something exploded underground.'"

According to the Trenton Times Feb. 17, 2009: the quake that struck Feb. 14 was centered 3 miles from Boonton, N.J. Police in Montville said, "The initial reports came in as an explosion or some sort of loud bang."

The Feb. 14 quake was about 2 kilometers, or 1.2 miles, deep, in a "zone of weakness" along "the trace of the Ramapo fault," according to Won-Young Kim, senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~wykim/)

The Trenton Times said, "The almost back-to-back jolts, though centered several miles apart, are worth watching, experts say."

"Two earthquakes of considerable size, in two weeks, that is unusual," Kim said.

The New York Times (Feb. 3, 2009) reported that, "An earthquake with a magnitude of 2 hit Phillipsburg, N.J., on July 28 [2008?]. A 2.6 magnitude quake struck Sussex County, N.J., on Feb. 17, 2006, and another quake, with a magnitude of 2.1, hit Morris County on Dec. 10, 2005.

The Trenton Times reported that, "The last big tremor in New Jersey was a 5.5 magnitude in 1884, though on a scale of 1 to 8, with eight considered a "great" quake, it is actually deemed moderate. The 1884 tremor toppled chimneys in New York City and New Jersey and cracked masonry as far away as Hartford, Conn., and West Chester, Pa., according to the United States Geological Survey."