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Early Oil Production in Oklahoma and California and Its Possible Relationship to Local Earthquake Activity

Description: 

During the late 1800s and early 1900s there were discoveries of significant underground oil reserves beneath both Oklahoma and California, and immediately following these discoveries production of the oil started to take place. In this study, a search of existing earthquake catalogs, of published literature and of early newspapers was carried out to look for associations of earthquakes with some early oil production. In Oklahoma the search for earthquakes focused on the El Reno area, just west of Oklahoma City. Early earthquakes were reported there in 1908, 1910, 1918, 1929 and 1933. A major oil find took place in Oklahoma City in 1928, and this find was located about 30 km east of El Reno. Another oil find took place in 1917 about 70 km northeast of El Reno in the Cement oil field. In California, oil was discovered in 1900 between the towns of Los Alamos and Orcutt. A well hit an oil gusher in October 1901. Newspaper accounts indicate that a swarm of earthquakes took place at Los Alamos in July 1902, and the UCERF3 earthquake catalog reports two earthquakes of Mw 5.8 somewhere near Los Alamos in July 1901. In both cases studied, earthquake activity was reported within months of the first oil production, although in Oklahoma the oil production took place several tens of kilometers (or more) from the possibly related earthquake epicenters. In Gazli, USSR it appears that strong earthquakes were triggered at epicentral distances of 20 km or more from the active wells. Perhaps some of these early historical earthquakes took place near the early oil fields and are mislocated due to poor historical data, or it may be possible that oil extraction can induce earthquakes at several tens of kilometers from the production sites.

Session: Understanding and Managing Induced Seismicity

Type: Oral

Date: 4/19/2023

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: John E. Ebel

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors