UPDATE 10:20 p.m. Wednesday: The story has been updated to include the additional two earthquakes that struck the area Wednesday night.
UPDATE 4:25 p.m. Wednesday: This story has been updated to include the three earthquakes that struck southeast Saline County this afternoon.
By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
The 15 earthquakes that struck southeastern Saline County Wednesday appear to be consistent with a pattern the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) has been studying for the past six years.
Rick Miller, a senior geophysics scientist with KGS, told Salina Post this morning that southeastern Saline County has had 50 or so earthquakes that have been felt in the area since January 2015. He defined "quakes that have been felt" as being of 2.5 magnitude or greater.
"That is significant compared to the previous 100 years," when only a few 2.5 magnitude or greater quakes were felt, he said.
Miller said the KGS has been conducting research in southeastern Saline County and has been keeping an eye on the increase of earthquakes.
Based on the information available so far, Miller said the area would feel a number of additional quakes, including some greater than a 4.0 magnitude over the next year. He was, however, quick to point out that the information available thus far does not indicate that earthquakes of 5.0 magnitude or greater are in our immediate future.
Miller explained that Saline County sits on the western edge of the Nemaha Ridge. On the eastern side of the ridge is the seismically active Humbolt Fault. Quakes have been documented for our area since the 1860, but not at the rate we have felt them over the past six years.
While the trend of earthquakes in south-central Kansas beginning in 2013-14 has been attributed to injection wells, Miller said the same could not be said for the earthquakes in Saline County. He said that in 2016, in the early part of earthquake uptick in Saline County, there were only two to three small injection wells.
Following is the KGS information for the quakes in southeastern Saline County thus far Wednesday. They are listed in chronological order from oldest to most recent.
