LONDON — Last fall an energy company began a hydraulic fracturing operation in northwest England that it hoped would be a milestone in creating a new, domestic source of natural gas for Britain — in much the same way that fracking has taken hold in the United States.

Three months later, after regularly causing earthquakes, the fracking has stopped, and the company has begun pulling some equipment from the site.

The company, Cuadrilla Resources, says it will continue to work in the cow pasture near Blackpool in Lancashire, seeking to extract natural gas economically and safely from the shale rocks. But so far, its results have failed to win over skeptics.

Some gas has bubbled up through the fracking liquids in its well, demonstrating that the rock formation Cuadrilla was exploring, known as the Bowland Shale, indeed contains some fuel. But the company was forced to suspend fracking at least four times when the work led to earthquakes that exceeded a magnitude of 0.5, the upper limit set by British regulators. There were also many smaller tremors.