Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News, uses cookies to personalize your experience and improve our services. For more information on how we use cookies on our websites, visit our Cookie Policy.
Feature Earth

Pumping carbon dioxide deep underground may trigger earthquakes

The potential is there, but tests so far have shown only imperceptible rumbles

A corn processing plant in Illinois

CARBON QUAKES  Injecting CO2 deep underground offers a promising way to curb global warming, but the extra pressure may cause faults to slip or fractures to release the buried carbon dioxide.

Archer Daniels Midland

By Charles Petit

This article is only available to Science News subscribers.

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.

Not a subscriber?

Science News is a nonprofit.

Support us by subscribing now.

More Stories from Science News on Earth

  1. Westerb Ghats mountains
    Earth

    Volcanic gas bursts probably didn’t kill off the dinosaurs

    By Carolyn Gramling
  2. Tel Aviv heat wave
    Earth

    2019 was the second-warmest year on record

    By Carolyn Gramling
  3. common murre seabirds
    Life

    The ‘Blob,’ a massive marine heat wave, led to an unprecedented seabird die-off

    By Jonathan Lambert
  4. Notre Dame
    Archaeology

    After the Notre Dame fire, scientists get a glimpse of the cathedral’s origins

    By Emily Conover
  5. Rescuer with koala
    Animals

    Australian fires have incinerated the habitats of up to 100 threatened species

    By John Pickrell
  6. Amazon fire
    Earth

    Wildfires could flip parts of the Amazon from a carbon sponge to a source by 2050

    By Carolyn Gramling
  7. Lake Tabourie fire
    Earth

    Here’s how climate change may make Australia’s wildfires more common

    By Carolyn Gramling
  8. Joint Polar Satellite System-1
    Climate

    Climate models agree things will get bad. Capturing just how bad is tricky

    By Carolyn Gramling

From the Nature Index

Paid Content