eprintid: 1913 rev_number: 11 eprint_status: archive userid: 6 dir: disk0/00/00/19/13 datestamp: 2017-09-20 05:46:58 lastmod: 2017-09-20 05:46:58 status_changed: 2017-09-20 05:46:58 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Weingarten, M. creators_name: Ge, Shemin creators_name: Godt, Jonathan W. creators_name: Bekins, B. A. creators_name: Rubinstein, Justin L. corp_creators: Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA corp_creators: Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA corp_creators: United States Geological Survey, Denver, CO, USA. corp_creators: United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park,CA, USA. corp_creators: United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park,CA, USA. title: High-rateinjection is associated with the increase in U.S. mid-continent seismicity subjects: MP2 subjects: RU subjects: SHU divisions: SHEER full_text_status: none abstract: An unprecedented increase in earthquakes in the U.S. mid-continent began in 2009. Many of these earthquakes have been documented as induced by wastewater injection. We examine the relationship between wastewater injection and U.S. mid-continent seismicity using a newly assembled injection well database for the central and eastern United States. We find that the entire increase in earthquake rate is associated with fluid injection wells. High-rate injection wells (>300,000 barrels per month) are much more likely to be associated with earthquakes than lower-rate wells. At the scale of our study, a well’s cumulative injected volume, monthly wellhead pressure, depth, and proximity to crystalline basement do not strongly correlate with earthquake association. Managing injection rates may be a useful tool to minimize the likelihood of induced earthquakes. date: 2015-06-19 date_type: published publication: Science volume: 348 publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science pagerange: 1336-1340 id_number: 10.1126/science.aab1345 issn: 0036-8075 access_IS-EPOS: limited owner: Publisher citation: Weingarten, M. and Ge, Shemin and Godt, Jonathan W. and Bekins, B. A. and Rubinstein, Justin L. (2015) High-rateinjection is associated with the increase in U.S. mid-continent seismicity. Science, 348. pp. 1336-1340. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab1345