News
Rise in New Mexico earthquakes likely triggered by oil industry
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New Mexico’s oil and gas regulators and scientists are on alert after a dramatic increase in earthquake activity in southern New Mexico — an increase likely triggered by oil and gas industry injection wells in the Permian Basin. Since 2018 the number of small quakes of magnitude 1 or greater in the basin has risen from about 40 to nearly 500 in 2020, and over that period quakes of magnitude of 2 or greater rose from none to 158, according to data from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. Join our email list to get the stories that mainstream news is overlooking.Sign up for Capital & Main’s newsletter. There were 146 quakes through June so far this year. Those numbers are just in New Mexico — they are even higher over the border in the Texas portion of the basin.