Oklahoma now leads nation in earthquakes

Oklahoma has officially passed up California regarding the prevalence of earthquakes, according to Woodward County Emergency Manager Matt Lehenbauer.

And they're still happening on an almost weekly basis.

A preliminary report posted Wednesday morning on Woodward County's Ready Woodward Emergency Management site indicated a small earthquake shook the Mooreland region at about 7:30 Wednesday morning.

The quake measured 4.0 on the Richter Scale and was fairly shallow - about 4 miles deep - according to the preliminary report posted by Matt Lehenbauer.

There have been a total of four earthquakes in the last 24 hours measuring above 2.0 on the Richter Scale in the Mooreland region, Lehenbauer said.

"They really have to be pretty shallow, 5 miles or less deep and more than 3.0 on the scale to be felt here," Lehenbauer said.

There have been 18 in the same region in the last month and 121 since January, he added.

The cause of the seemingly sudden shift, if you will, of Oklahoma becoming the new prize wining earthquake state, still has scientists baffled.

At present, scientists are leaning toward blaming salt water disposal injection as one of the possible causes, Lehenbauer said. But he added that through all of the recent need to investigate the region's fault systems, many new fault lines they never knew existed have been discovered, he said.
"Our concern is growing in this part of Oklahoma that we might be seeing more of a trend for earthquakes right here," Lehenbauer said.WoodwardNews