Alice Sun is a science journalist based in Brooklyn. She covers a wide range of topics, including ecology, neuroscience, social science and technology. Her work has appeared in Audubon, Sierra, Inverse and more. For her bachelor's degree, she studied environmental biology at McGill University in Canada.
It's commonly assumed that earthquakes occur only near the boundaries of tectonic plates, and roughly 90% of earthquakes do happen in these areas. These boundaries include, for example, the San Andreas Fault, which runs roughly along the west coast of California, where the North American and Pacific plates meet.
One possible explanation is that intraplate earthquakes may be caused by old glaciers, a 2001 study proposed. Around 20,000 years ago, much of North America was covered under a giant ice sheet, and the ground was weighed down considerably. As the ice sheet melted, the ground slowly rose, so the earthquakes may be the result of this adjustment. Evidence for this theory, however, is sparse.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Another idea is that intraplate earthquakes are occurring around old faults on the insides of tectonic plates. For billions of years, Earth's crust has split apart and come back together, and old wounds leave scars. When forces propagate through to the plates' interior and put too much stress on these old faults, they may get reactivated, Ghosh said.
Hydraulic factoring, or fracking — the act of injecting water, sand and chemicals into underground rocks to extract oil or gas — can trigger earthquakes, too. Wastewater fluid from these operations are injected into deep wells, which can seep into cracks, lubricate old faults and cause seismic activity, according to a 2013 review in Science. For instance, fracking was tied to a number of earthquakes in Ohio in 2015.
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