Does fracking cause earthquakes? Not quite, says the U.S. Geological Survey. It looks like the process may not be a problem but the waste water apparently is. Earthquake activity has skyrocketed in recent years around the U.S. Midwest, the organization reports in a new study. From 1970 to 2000, the region averaged 21 earthquakes a year. By 2009, thatfigure had risen to 50, before hitting 87 in 2010 and 134 in 2011."Something unusual is going on, and we think many of these earthquakes can be traced to industrial activity," says William Ellsworth, director of the U.S. Geological Survey's earthquake science centre, in a report from Bloomberg.
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