OIL: Assessing the real faults

In our rush to find more oil and gas, we are destroying our environment. Read about the connection between fracking and sinkholes.

Hydraulic fracturing has been around for over 50 years and can produce oil and natural gas in places where conventional technologies are unproductive. Sinkholes are underground cavities where the bedrock has been removed. When someone mentions the “Big One” most people think of the San Andreas Fault in California, but in 1811-1812 the New Madrid fault line in New Madrid, Mo., opened up and rang church bells in Boston, Mass., over 1,200 miles away. It even caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards for a while. Some scientists say the New Madrid is already overdue.

There are a dozen nuclear power plants and 40 million people in the vicinity of the New Madrid fault and new sinkholes are opening every day, while we continue to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Lakes could potentially flow into the Gulf of Mexico. We are already divided politically and about to become divided physically. The mighty Mississippi River is already a mile wide in some places.

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