Guy–Greenbrier Earthquake Swarm
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The Guy–Greenbrier earthquake swarm occurred in
central Arkansas Central Arkansas, also known as the Little Rock metro, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state ...
beginning in August 2010. The
epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...
s of earthquakes in the swarm showed a linear distribution, with a clear overall shift in activity towards the southwest with time, and the largest event in the swarm was the 2011 Arkansas earthquake, at 4.7 on the
moment magnitude scale The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mwg, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. was defined in a 1979 paper ...
.


Cause

It has been suggested that the swarm was triggered by drilling activities associated with the exploration and production of
shale gas Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s, a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and ...
in the
Fayetteville Shale The Fayetteville Shale is a geologic formation (geology), formation of Mississippian age (354–323 million years ago) composed of tight shale within the Arkoma Basin of Arkansas and Oklahoma. It is named for the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, an ...
in northern Arkansas. Analysis of the swarm has found no link between this relatively shallow drilling and the earthquakes, but has instead suggested a link with deep waste disposal drilling similar to that identified at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in the 1960s, and has led to a moratorium on such drilling being proposed covering an area of .


See also

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List of earthquakes in 2010 Earthquakes in 2010 resulted in nearly 165,000 fatalities. Most of these were due to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which caused an estimated 160,000 deaths, making it the 8th deadliest earthquake in recorded history. Other deadly quakes occurred in ...
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List of earthquakes in 2011 This is a list of earthquakes in 2011. Only earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above are included, unless they result in damage and/or casualties, or are notable for some other reason. Smaller events in remote areas will be excluded from the list as ...
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List of earthquakes in the United States The following is a list of notable earthquakes and tsunamis which had their epicenter in areas that are now part of the United States with the latter affecting areas of the United States. Those in ''italics'' were not part of the United States wh ...
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Enola earthquake swarm The Enola earthquake swarm was a series of earthquakes in 2001 that centered on Central Arkansas Central Arkansas, also known as the Little Rock metro, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Little Rock-North L ...
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Oklahoma earthquake swarms (2009–present) The Oklahoma earthquake swarms are an ongoing series of human activity-induced earthquakes affecting central Oklahoma, southern Kansas, northern Texas since 2009. Beginning in 2009, the frequency of earthquakes in the U.S. state of Oklahoma rap ...


References

Earthquake swarms Earthquakes in the United States Natural disasters in Arkansas 2010 earthquakes 2011 earthquakes {{US-earthquake-stub