Updated: Dec. 23, 2024 at 7:27 PM PST
CADDO PARISH, La. (KSLA) - Several days in a row, parts of the ArkLaTex have been rumbled by earthquakes.
A 3.1 magnitude earthquake was recorded just after 3 a.m. Sunday (Dec. 22) roughly three miles west-northwest of Mooringsport.
According to the USGS website, it was the latest of five earthquakes that occurred within the past four days in this area.
DATE | TIME | LOCATION | MAGNITUDE |
---|
Dec. 22, 2024 | 3:04 a.m. | 3.11 miles WNW of Mooringsport | 3.1 |
Dec. 21, 2024 | 2:14 p.m. | 0.62 of a mile SSW of Mooringsport | 2.4 |
Dec. 20, 2024 | 5:19 p.m. | 4.35 miles SSW of Mooringsport | 3.1 |
Dec. 19, 2024 | 6:15 a.m. | 1.24 miles S of Mooringsport | 3.1 |
Dec. 19, 2024 | 12:10 a.m. | 5.59 miles SW of Mooringsport | 2.6 |
On Saturday (Dec. 21) at 9:04 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded another 3.1 magnitude earthquake within the Caddo Lake region. This one occurred about five miles west-northwest of Mooringsport and was 5 km deep.
Another was recorded about 5 p.m. Friday (Dec. 20). According to the USGS website, that earthquake also measured 3.1.
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The third earthquake recorded in just two short days occurred near Blanchard and Mooringsport just off Caddo Lake. While many residents said they didn’t feel the earthquake too severely, it did cause some concern.
On Thursday (Dec. 19), the first two earthquakes shook near the southwestern side of Caddo Lake near Uncertain, Texas. Those quakes shook many homes and businesses and startled residents.
Earthquakes are relatively rare in the ArkLaTex, yet there has been this recent outbreak.
“An aftershock is usually when you have a larger earthquake, you get a bunch of smaller ones after it,” explained Thomas Pratt, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
“Given that all of these are all about the same size, I think that we would categorize this as a swarm. There isn’t a formal definition of that, but a swarm means a lot of similar-sized earthquakes and presumingly whatever process is causing them is causing all of them.”
He said the cause of the earthquakes could be oil and natural gas operations in the region. “We think that these are probably induced by oil and gas operations, particularly fluid injection,” Pratt said.
There remain a lot of unknowns, and there’s no way to accurately predict when the earthquakes will end.
“So a lot depends on what the oil and gas companies are doing,” Pratt said.
“If they continue to inject, then you could continue to get these earthquakes, they could ramp up to larger earthquakes. In fact, if they cut back on their fluid injection, these could die away. Even if they keep the fluid injection steady, they could also die away.”
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