Studies Reveal Geological Faults, Stress Orientations in Texas, Oklahoma

A team of geophysicists from Stanford University have compiled a map of 200 new maximum horizontal stress orientations in Texas and surrounding areas, potentially giving operators valuable information for avoiding seismic activity in their hydraulic fracturing operations. The stress map, which can be found ina paper published in the American Geophysical Union’sGeophysical Research Letters, analyzed the nature of recent seismic activity in the area, much of which may have been triggered by the injection of wastewater below ground.