The 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Oklahoma last month raised some big questions for Kansas geologist Tandis Bidgoli.
“I was very concerned,” Bidgoli said, “because it didn’t appear there were any foreshocks to that event.”
As The Wichita Eagle reports,big quakes are usually preceded by other, smaller seismic events. Scientists often uses these smaller tumblers to predict a bigger earthquake. But last month in Pawnee, Oklahoma, the big quake seemed to come out of nowhere. And that lead Bidgoli to wonder of last month’s quake might have itself been the foreshock of a bigger event.
Bidgoli also believes the way scientists look at the causes of earthquakes may be flawed. Instead of looking at nearby wells, she believes some quakes may be caused by wastewater disposal occurring miles away.
