In the 1970’s bumper stickers advised us “if the van is a rockin’ don’t come a knockin,'” but in 2017 Oklahoma you might want to call the U.S. Geological Service if the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror of the Mystery Machine starts swaying back and forth.
That’s because Oklaoma is on pace for a record breaking year when it comes to reported and recorded earthquakes and fifteen small ground shakers have been recorded in the Sooner State just in the past few days.
Thousands of earthquakes have struck in Oklahoma in recent years, many linked by geologists to the underground injection of wastewater from oil and natural gas operations.
No injuries or serious damage has been reported in the latest round, but Oklahoman’s have certainly felt the earth move under their feet.
The largest quake recorded by the agency during the recent spat was magnitude 3.1 near the town of Lamont, about 85 miles north of Oklahoma City.
However, the latest came within the past 24-hours as a 2.8 magnitude tremor 22 miles northwest of Fairview and Luther experienced a 4½ mile deep blast 2.2 miles under the surface and less than 1½ miles northwest of the center of town.
A dozen other earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 2.3 to 2.8 were recorded since last Friday, including two in both Douglas and Waynoka and single quakes in Edmond, Arcadia, Shamrock, Deer Creek, Byron, Stroud and Luther.
Officials for the USGS say earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 to 3.0 are generally the smallest that are felt by humans.
The USGS encourages anyone who feels the earth “a tumblin’ down” to log onto https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ and file an online report in an effort to help the agency better map seismic activity.
