After a series of earthquakes in northwest Louisiana triggered by Thursday’s magnitude 4.9 in Red River Parish, the U.S. Geological Survey spent time this week installing new equipment to assist in detecting earthquakes. Among those on the team was Cynthia Ebinger with the Tulane University School of Science and Engineering, who says this is standard operating procedure.
“The federal government has a trigger set that, if it’s a magnitude 4.5 or bigger, the U.S. Geological Survey sends a rapid response team, and they actually put instruments in to measure the ground accelerations,” Ebinger explained.
Ebinger says the data collected from those instruments will be very beneficial.
“Help the planners, help with engineers and others, through technical folks, to better plan and to mediate anything that needs to be done,” Ebinger said.
Ebinger says she’s done prior studies using the equipment to examine the connection between earthquakes and wastewater injection, which is prevalent in states like Texas and Oklahoma where earthquake activity is increasing.
“In 2019, I got a bit of funding from the state to put out some Tulane instruments, just to see if there were small earthquakes in northwest Louisiana. We found some in Caddo Parish, and then we saw a few near Coushatta,” Ebinger said.
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