{"id":241079,"date":"2026-04-08T23:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/241079\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T23:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:13:15","slug":"trio-of-tremors-shake-south-texas-expert-says-area-earthquakes-are-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/241079\/","title":{"rendered":"Trio of tremors shake South Texas, expert says area earthquakes are on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 40 earthquakes have been recorded near the Coastal Bend since April, ranging from magnitude 1.2 to 3.5. An expert tells 3NEWS why quakes have increased.<\/p>\n

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 A cluster of small earthquakes shook the Coastal Bend on Wednesday, with most activity centered northwest of Corpus Christi, according to a United States Geological Survey seismologist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

RELATED: This 200-acre property sat silent for 80 years in Ingleside and now it\u2019s about to become a money machine<\/a><\/p>\n

Since the beginning of April, about 40 earthquakes have been documented in that area, ranging from magnitude 1.2 to 3.5.<\/p>\n

Three of those occurred Wednesday near Pawnee, including a magnitude 3.5 and 3.4 earthquake recorded minutes apart, along with a smaller 2.5 event, according to the United States Geological Survey.<\/p>\n

Justin Rubinstein, a research geophysicist and project leader for the USGS Induced Seismicity Project<\/a>, said most have occurred within the past few days, including three magnitude 3 earthquakes — one on April 6 and two on April 8.<\/p>\n

Only a handful of those earthquakes would likely be felt by residents, but a magnitude 3 can produce a noticeable shake.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll give you a shake, startle you, but it\u2019s not going to cause significant damage,\u201d Rubinstein said.<\/p>\n

The activity is part of a broader trend in South Texas, where earthquake frequency has increased over the past decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese earthquakes are located within the Eagle Ford Shale, a broad area stretching from Mexico to between Houston and Austin,\u201d he said. \u201cOver the past 10 to 15 years, there has been a pretty big increase in seismicity in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Eagle Ford Shale<\/a> is a large underground rock formation in South Texas rich in oil and natural gas. It stretches from the Mexican border through areas south of San Antonio and toward East Texas.<\/p>\n

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It has been heavily developed since the late 2000s using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. That activity produces oil — along with large amounts of saltwater and wastewater that are often injected back underground.<\/p>\n

The rise in earthquakes began to accelerate around 2017, according to Rubinstein.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking in a broader sense, the earthquakes in the past 15 years — we believe most of these are induced, caused by humans, in particular processes related to oil and gas operations in the area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While no single earthquake can be definitively tied to a specific operation, Rubinstein said the increase in earthquakes is largely tied to oil and gas activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you pull out oil, you get saltwater trapped in the same formation, and then they inject that back underground,\u201d he said. \u201cMost of these earthquakes are going to be induced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the increase in frequency, earthquakes in the Eagle Ford have remained relatively small. The largest recorded in the region was a magnitude 4.8 in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really not seeing earthquakes with the potential to cause very much damage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rubinstein said earthquake activity in the Eagle Ford remains relatively low compared to other parts of Texas, particularly the Permian Basin.<\/p>\n

The Permian Basin<\/a>, located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, has seen a much higher volume of earthquakes in recent years tied to oil and gas production. Rubinstein said some years have recorded hundreds of magnitude 3 earthquakes, along with several magnitude 5 events since 2020.<\/p>\n

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Rubinstein pointed to Oklahoma as an example of how earthquake activity tied to oil and gas operations can be reduced.<\/p>\n

Between 2011 and 2016, Oklahoma recorded extremely high earthquake rates, including nearly 900 magnitude 3 earthquakes in a single year, most linked to saltwater disposal.<\/p>\n

That rate began to drop at the end of 2015 after regulators required operators to reduce how much wastewater they injected and limited how deep they could drill, according to Rubinstein.<\/p>\n

“We think it was a combination of both politics and regulations — as well as economics,” he said. “At the end of 2015 the earthquake rate in Oklahoma dropped. Oil production dropped, and around the same time the state put in a regulation that all saltwater disposal wells had to reduce their injection rate and they couldn’t inject as deep. Deeper injection wells were closer to faults that could cause quakes. Pulling wells up made it harder for water to get into the faults.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rubinstein said similar changes to oil and gas operations could help reduce earthquake activity.<\/p>\n

“Hydrolic fracturing is a different process — a well is fracked for generally no more than a few days,” he said. “Quakes related to fracking are really only going to last for those few days or a few days afterwards. They’re more difficult to mitigate because you have to react very quickly. If you change your operations, you can reduce your earthquake rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 40 earthquakes have been recorded near the Coastal Bend since April, ranging from magnitude 1.2 to 3.5.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-241079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}