California isn’t the only earthquake capital anymore — Oklahoma, mostly associated with weather-related disasters, has joined in.
The U.S. Geological Survey labeled places in Oklahoma and Northern California with a 10%-12% chance of experiencing damage from an earthquake in 2016.
The 2016 USGS earthquake forecast included both natural and human-induced earthquakes for the first time.
The forecast suggests that seven million people in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arkansas face increased risks from earthquakes induced by human activities “such as fluid injection or extraction.”
Last year, there were more than 1,000 quakes with a magnitude greater than 3 on the Richter scale in the Plains states, up from an annual average of 24 between 1973 and 2008, according to sources.
Read more at National Geographic.com.
