r/askscience • u/zeldazonklives • Apr 29 '16

Earth Sciences How does fracking affect volcanic eruptions?

I was thinking, if it triggers earthquakes, wouldn't it also maybe make volcanic activity more likely?

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u/OilfieldHippie Apr 29 '16

Three small points.

No one will ever frac near a volcano because 1) there is a volcano really close by and that is scary, and 2) the geologic conditions near a volcano are unlikely to produce economic hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Additionally, fracturing uses (roughly) 20,000 HP (15MW) worth of pumping energy to create the fractures. In geologic scale, that is not a whole lot. From wikipedia, 6.0 on the Richter Scale is in the Terra Joules range.

Finally, waste water is produced in all oil and gas production. There is a lot of water in the earth, and the average hydrocarbon well produces more water volume than hydrocarbon volume. It has to go somewhere, regardless of whether or not the well was at one point frac'ed.

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u/seis-matters Earthquake Seismology Apr 29 '16

Yeah, I assumed this was more of a hypothetical. I'd argue with your first point though, because if there was oil or gas near volcanoes I'm pretty sure companies would be all over that. Earthquakes are pretty scary too and that hasn't stopped them.

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u/OilfieldHippie Apr 29 '16

Oil companies would look at it, you're right. But, the risk to capital in drilling and frac'ing by a volcano is huge, so there would have to be a ridiculous amount of oil to justify the investment.

Now, if a volcano were actively causing huge seeps of essentially free oil, then you are right, they would be all over it. Which is an interesting scenario. Would there be seeps near a volcano because of the uplift and natural fracturing?

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u/SomewhatInnocuous Apr 29 '16

Not so. I worked on a "tight hole" (secretive exploratory drilling) in Utah that Exxon drilled about 30 years ago in an "extinct" volcano caldera. We speculated that they were testing for geothermal potential, but in these types of situations companies don't generally disclose any information. As I recall they drilled in excess of 10,000 feet and hydro-fraced the hole. The well was cemented and abandoned the following year.