There were seven earthquakes in Oklahoma over the weekend. Crazy, right? Not when you consider that, as of June 2014, there have been more earthquakes in Oklahoma than anywhere else in the continental United States, including California. It's not by a narrow margin, either. Just taking quakes with a magnitude of 3.0 or greater into account, the most recent numbers have them "winning" 207 to 140, a beating the likes of which hasn't been seen in an Oklahoma vs. California match-up since this year's NBA Western Conference Semifinals.



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If this seems odd, that's because it totally is. From 1978 to 2008, Oklahoma averaged two magnitude 3.0 earthquakes per year. Again, just through the middle of last month or so, they're already at 207. At least half the country will probably be buried under a pile of rubble before anyone really admits it, but the cause of this epidemic is hydraulic fracturing, which everyone just calls "fracking" now, because one-word phrases make for simpler Twitter protests.

In 2008, the number of natural gas wells in the Devonian Woodford Shale in Oklahoma increased to 750 from just 24. That's the last year Oklahoma had anything approaching a "normal" yearly earthquake average. It's not a difficult correlation to make, except for one thing -- as the oil and gas companies who swear they aren't going to kill us all like to point out, earthquakes are still on the rise in Oklahoma even though drilling for resources by way of fracking has been scaled back significantly in the area.