The morning of Saturday, September 3, the house shook at about 7:02 am.Earthquake, 5.6 magnitude on the Richter scale.  The rumbling lasted for several seconds.  I was in Tulsa and the epicenter was near Pawnee, about 56 miles away.  In Tulsa the earthquake was notable; in Pawnee some buildings were damaged or even destroyed.

Some were quick to charge fracing as the causation culprit.  The earthquake was felt over an area of several states, so many people involved and much attention.  In fact the incidence of earthquakes in Oklahoma has reduced recently.  So has the amount of wastewater injection into deep wells, and the location of the active injection wells.  Oklahoma has always been seismically active.  But this big one, occurring at this time, will spark anew the debate about fracking and wastewater disposal.

I was there.  The ground shook.  But the shake-up, economically and socially, from reduced oil and gas drilling and production in Oklahoma will dwarf even those tremors.