Talk:2016 Oklahoma earthquake

Article name

Could we update the title to 2016 Pawnee Earthquake, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BalooUriza (talk • contribs) 15:15, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

This is mostly an issue of what name is most-easily recognized. It may be worth creating a redirect from 2016 Pawnee earthquake, but that may not be an ideal title due to lower name recognition. More people know that there was an earthquake in Oklahoma than know that its epicenter was near Pawnee in Oklahoma. Dustin (talk) 15:53, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Should we consider a name change to 2016 Pawnee, Oklahoma, earthquake? If so, we'd have to change the reference at the "swarms" article to reflect the new title, I'm guessing. Activist (talk) 21:39, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Let me add that the quake occurred in the Pawnee Nation, Pawnee county, near the city of Pawnee. The tribe had been deported from its traditional territory in Nebraska to a new reservation on part of the Osage hunting grounds. Activist (talk) 21:54, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Dustin V. S.. No change is necessary to keep an easy-to-find name. Wykx (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dustin V. S.: @TallCorgi: @Wykx: If a reader searched for 2016 Oklahoma earthquake, wouldn't they be redirected to the name with Pawnee included? Also, there was that 5.1 magnitude quake northwest of Pawnee in Fairview months ago. ("Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?") Activist (talk) 22:20, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the title ideally should be made more specific. The current title, "2016 Oklahoma earthquake" seems to imply that it is the only earthquake Oklahoma in 2016, but, as the 2009–16 Oklahoma earthquake swarms article indicates, there are hundreds of earthquakes every year in Oklahoma. I think the greater context of the earthquake swarms is important in order to properly understand the earthquake (i.e. it isn't just a freak occurrence, but one of thousands), so it's important to have a specific enough title. The USGS calls it the rather wordy but very specific "M5.8 - 15km NW of Pawnee, Oklahoma" or "September 3, 2016 M 5.8 Oklahoma earthquake." This is probably too technical, but as a compromise between very general and very specific, I think 2016 Pawnee, Oklahoma earthquake is a workable title. A web search for 2016 Oklahoma earthquake will still match all the words in the title. We could make 2016 Oklahoma earthquake a redirect to 2016 Pawnee, Oklahoma earthquake and we could put a hatnote at the top saying something like, "This article is about the September 3, 2016 5.8-magnitude earthquake near Pawnee, Oklahoma. For information about other Oklahoma earthquakes in 2016, see 2009–16 Oklahoma earthquake swarms." This is just a general idea; there's probably a better way to word it. If we keep the title 2016 Pawnee Earthquake, we could still maybe add a hatnote. That would at least let the reader know that there were other Oklahoma earthquakes in 2016.TallCorgi (talk) 00:27, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

If I compare with other quakes on same year, titles stay quite generic like 2011 Colorado earthquake, 2011 Virginia earthquake, 2011 Zumpango earthquake, 2011 Pakistan earthquake. Wykx (talk) 08:57, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dustin V. S.: @TallCorgi: @Wykx: I agree completely with TallCorgi, including the suggestion for a hatnote. The Pawnee earthquake has been upgraded to a 5.8 M, which I believe is twice as strong as the original estimate. However, I believe there have been over 300 earthquakes over 2.5 M, in Oklahoma this year, so this one is quite distinctive and occurred on a previously unknown fault. It was also an induced quake. The feedback I've been getting from friends in the area indicate this unique quake lasted quite long, maybe a minute, and the shaking quickly grew and slowly subsided. At least some of the other cites you mention, i.e. Virginia for sure, and maybe Colorado, have been single quake episodes. This is a long way from that. Activist (talk) 10:06, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually most earthquakes have foreshocks and aftershocks, this is common. Only the biggest ones deserve an article in general.Wykx (talk) 11:00, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

You're right. I looked at the Virginia quake and there were a large number of aftershocks. In Colorado, there were numerous ones, including a 5.1 and a 5.3, I think, the biggest in 40 years, and they were in the vicinity of injection wells. Activist (talk) 14:52, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I noticed 2011 Oklahoma earthquake had a nice hatnote pointing to the 2009–16 Oklahoma earthquake swarms article, so I decided to WP:BEBOLD and added a similar note to this article. I hope that's ok; if that's against consensus, please go ahead and remove it. The hundreds of earthquakes in Oklahoma to which I was referring aren't foreshocks and aftershocks--they are distinct earthquake events. Hundreds of earthquakes are occurring every year in Oklahoma, which, through the mid-2000s, used to get just a couple a year. It's an extraordinary phenomenon, which scientists say seems to be correlated to the rise of hydraulic fracturing. To a person from Oklahoma or familiar with the Oklahoma earthquake situation, "2016 Oklahoma earthquake" is a really broad, confusing title; it naturally brings to mind the question, "Which 2016 earthquake?" I know we have to have a global perspective, so maybe to a person from outside the U.S., this is the only Oklahoma earthquake of significance, but I think it's important to communicate to global readers that this isn't an isolated incident (but maybe the hatnote takes care of that?). TallCorgi (talk) 17:35, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the hatnote is absolutely necessary because indeed there is a specificy of earthquakes in Oklahoma. Wykx (talk) 19:49, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I originally added that hatnote because whenever I'd Google search "Oklahoma earthquakes" or "Earthquakes in Oklahoma," I'd find that "2011 Oklahoma earthquake" would pop up but not "2009–15 Oklahoma earthquake swarms" (it was 2015 at the time). I think that my doing so has helped lift the main swarms article to be a higher-up search result. Dustin (talk) 20:32, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for writing the hatnote (I hope you don't mind that I copied it!); if people looking for the swarms land on the 2011 or 2016 earthquake pages by mistake, they can quickly see that there's another article for the swarms.TallCorgi (talk) 15:08, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Minor corrections

1 injured needs to be removed from casualties and set to 0. The Mercalli scale would be set to 6 instead of 7 and there still would be citations needed for such an observation. DrkBlueXG (talk) 16:25, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Felt as far as...

Edited northern most report to Fargo, ND. Level3Sentry ❯❯❯ Talk 01:29, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

References

Notability

How does this meet notability requirements? Schwede66 02:37, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

@Schwede66: I'm surprised you're even asking this question. It, along with the 2011 Oklahoma earthquake, is the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Oklahoma. It received an abundance of national news coverage, it was felt across several states, it was felt out to the better part of a thousand miles away, and it is part of a major event in Oklahoma -- the current uptick in earthquakes. Dustin (talk) 03:06, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm asking because the only part of the notability criteria that this event meets is the intensity (which is not referenced and given that is the only thing that may make this event notable, it should be). I may point out that the 2011 event had a higher intensity, so that one meets notability criteria better than this one. The 2016 event may or may not survive an AfD. I particularly refer to the last bullet point of the notability criteria, given that you make reference to it, and suggest that any AfD nomination should wait a wee while to see what ongoing coverage there is. I live in an earthquake area and know what a 5.6 feels like (and it's mostly not a big deal, may I say). If there would be community consensus that it's a notable event, I further suggest that the WikiProject Earthquakes importance rating is rather misguided; this should be set at low. Schwede66 04:19, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

More than "just the intensity" is notable. You have disregarded the magnitude of the earthquake compared to historical seismicity and earthquake magnitudes in the area. Even using that page you linked, which I take as more of a guideline anyway, this subject is "Of scientific interest," and an "unusually large event in an area of low seismicity." That is three points right there. On the point of how strong a 5.6 is, I have to note that according to your userpage, you live in New Zealand, which is not in the middle of a continent. And I repeat, this is tied for the strongest earthquake in the history of this state. Dustin (talk) 04:30, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

It shouldn't be difficult to make a clear case of it's scientific interest when the USGS report comes out. Induced quakes and waste water injection is a contentious topic nationally. That this quake was as intense as the 2011 event, despite the myriad of policies and regulations introduced in the interim, is itself notable as it represents a reversal of the declining trends attributed to those policies. It should be added that injection well operations have been suspended in the area as a result. Level3Sentry ❯❯❯ Talk 07:48, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

This quake is quite notable because as editors have noted here, the frequency of earthquakes over M 2.5 has diminished significantly since limitations on injection well volume, pressure and operational status have been instituted in the past two years. I had to research for a moment, because I thought the 1952 El Reno quake had been a 5.7. It was actually a 5.5. The Prague quake of 2011 was originally rated at 5.7, but was downgraded to a 5.6. Although Friday's Pawnee quake was rated as 5.6 also, it was stated by experts that it was fractionally stronger than the one in 2011, though there was less damage to structures. Officials from the state of Oklahoma were extremely reluctant to intervene even though it was clear that injection wells were inducing seismicity, to the extent that Austin Holland, at the time the head of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, admitted being pressured to deny that disposal wells were causing the tremors, despite the mass of material the OGS had collected. The "background" earthquakes amounted to one to two per year. Intense horizontal fracking started in 2008 or earlier, to my knowledge, though the Bloomberg article says in 2009. By 2014, the annual quakes had risen to over 3,000, I believe. I hear regularly from friends in Kansas and Oklahoma about their experiences with the quakes. A number wrote me from Kansas on 9/3 whose homes were 100 miles north and northwest from Pawnee though up to 70 miles apart from each other. All described feeling a long quake, with significant tremors lasting almost a minute. I thought the Bloomberg article was actually quite good, though written from a distance of the event, but the headline was misleading as has been noted here. Reporters rarely write their headlines on larger newspapers. I've seen others completely misunderstanding the articles for which they wrote the headlines.. Activist (talk) 06:08, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Fracking and disposal wells

I notice that this article from Bloomberg uses a title which, I believe, is misleading. I called the headline sensational because it seemed to invoke the word "fracking" in such a way as to encourage more people to read (or something of the sort); far more people know of the word "fracking" than know about wastewater disposal. I have been lead to believe that millions of people erroneously equate the word, with part of the blame lying on media outlets using terminology such as "fracking disposal wells" instead of "disposal wells, much of whom's water comes from hydraulic fracturing" (since wastewater is also produced at normal wells, albeit in lower volumes). I just don't want people to be mislead into thinking the two are the same thing or that the USGS is saying that fracking is inducing the earthquakes rather than wastewater injection, especially considering people working there went to the trouble of explicitly saying "Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes. Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States" on this page. The Bloomberg article itself isn't so bad, but it still seems to imply that all the water being injected into the wells is produced from fracking operations, when it is really a part of it (maybe most of it, but still less than 100%). Page 2 of this is also worth reading; people will come here with these misconceptions, and if they see "fracking wastewater disposal wells," they'll keep operating on these misconceptions. Dustin (talk) 17:33, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

• Take it up with Bloomberg. I am going to follow the sources on this, and if you continue to impose your WP:OR I'll take you to ANI. Abductive (reasoning) 03:23, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The sources I mention clearly indicate that this is not correct. Not all wastewater comes from fracking, and just because the media can't get it right doesn't make the USGS wrong. See Fact 3 and Fact 4 from the USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/induced/myths.php Also consider looking at this source. This is not original research. You aren't trying that hard to discuss considering your first response is to threaten to take me to ANI. If it makes things any better, I won't immediately revert you if you undo my revision, but please try to hear me out. Dustin (talk) 03:40, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

USGS is a primary source. I am using a secondary source. Now buzz off. Abductive (reasoning) 07:33, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

So sensationalist Bloomberg News is more reliable than the USGS? That makes no sense at all. You're just going to disregard everything I said? Dustin (talk) 17:14, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

And what's this "buzz off" about? I have done everything in my power to make Wikipedia's coverage of Earthquakes in Oklahoma better, and you're just going to tell me to "buzz off?" That seems like a slightly nicer way of saying "f*** off." Dustin (talk) 17:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The term "fracking disposal well" is objectively incorrect. You will find no scientific publications anywhere using that term. The more reliable news sources, including the Associated Press, Reuters, other national news outlets, and dozens of pieces from local outlets also avoid the term. I have already demonstrated that fracking and wastewater disposal are not the same, nor is fracking even necessitated for wastewater disposal to take place. Just because a single article uses the bizarre wording "fracking waste-disposal well" doesn't suddenly make it scientific or correct. Dustin (talk) 22:10, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

So I haven't been following this closely; only enough to notice some of the reverting going on. I started thinking about posting earlier today and I will attempt to stay neutral on the matter. I almost chose not to, because I know little to nothing on the subject. As a layperson, there are several comments that I'd like to make. The first couple of bits are about one of the involved editors and the second bit is about one of the sources:

1. For the last couple of years, I've watched as Dustin V. S. has been closely monitoring the events in Oklahoma and adding related content. That doesnt make him an expert or "the right person for the job" but I think that the experience helps. An additional note: we haven't always seen eye to eye.
2. I'd say that just about any old editor should really appreciate the thoughtfulness that Dustin V. S. has been applying to this situation (i.e. not simply repeating a poor choice of words from a generic news source). His goal is to prevent the retransmission of a misconception. Nothing wrong with that.
3. What I've learned about writing these kinds of articles is that proper source selection is critical. We need to use sources that are appropriate for the material. There is nothing that makes Bloomberg News a recognized authority with regard to earthquakes or induced seismicity.

Dawnseeker2000 02:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Then you need to read up on Wikipedia Policies. Start here: Wikipedia:No original research. Abductive (reasoning) 03:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Restoration and deletion of sources

@Dustin V. S.: @TallCorgi: @Wykx: I'm removing the Fox News source since it doesn't contribute anything to the article. Also its headline reads that shut downs (sic) were ordered in a 500-mile radius (i.e., 778,800 square miles) of the epicenter, instead of a 500-square-mile area. That's not just the misleading "fracking" headline as Dustin V.S. correctly noted earlier, but more on the order of "Dewey Beats Truman," and "Bradley beats Dukmejian." A 500-square mile area is only <23 miles on a side, a 12.6-mile radius, so it means that the inconvenience of driving brine/waste to a more distant injection well than one of the 37 densely located ones being closed would probably be just an extra 10 miles or less. On the other hand, the source that had been removed (it had locations where the quake was felt, but they were Austin, Omaha and Des Moines, closer to the epicenter than North Dakota and San Antonio as USER:TallCorgi noted. (Another source noted that the quake had been felt in Chicago.) More importantly, it contains a map of the affected sausage-shaped area, arrayed in a diagonal northwest of Pawnee, with the locations and names of the 37 affected injection wells and fault lines. Activist (talk) 22:40, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about removing the source with the sausage-shaped map; I was just looking at the text, not the map. With the recency of the event and the changing USGS statements, it's good to have multiple people checking the sources. TallCorgi (talk) 00:33, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

No problem at all, and thank you. If I had a nickel for every time I did something I felt I could have done better, I'd be rich. Activist (talk) 09:48, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions for sections in article?

It seems as though it would be helpful to break this article up in sections, perhaps to conform with the Virginia or Prague quake articles' format. Anyone with any thoughts on it? Activist (talk) 14:22, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it is a good idea to break up this article into sections until it has grown a bit. The 2011 Oklahoma earthquake's article is over twice as large in terms of prose, and the 2011 Virginia earthquake's article is several times as large. After this article has gotten larger, it may be more worth the effort. Dustin (talk) 17:34, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

New fault discovered

Several blips on national news about the new fault discovered while investigating this quake. Perhaps someone with a better understanding of the fracking issue can update the article. Level3Sentry ❯❯❯ Talk 08:18, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for providing this link. I may add some information about the new fault in the near-future. I'll also try to add a bit about the disposal well shutdowns too. Dustin (talk) 22:53, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

References