Earthquakes Induced by Fluid Injection
Q: How does the injection of wastewater at depth cause earthquakes?
A:
Earth’s crust is pervasively fractured at depth by faults. These faults can sustain high stresses without slipping because natural “tectonic” stress and the weight of the overlying rock pushes the opposing fault blocks together, increasing the frictional resistance to fault slip. The injected wastewater counteracts the frictional forces on faults and, in effect, “pries them apart”, thereby facilitating earthquake slip.
Was this hypothesis ever tested in different parts of the world ?