The Railroad Commission of Texas is holding a town hall meeting tonight about the swarm of minor earthquakes in and near Azle and Reno.
Commissioner David Porter is hosting the meeting at 5 p.m. at Azle High School, 1200 Boyd Rd.
Authorities are trying to figure out what's been causing the earthquakes in an area about 20 miles northwest of Fort Worth. About 30 small quakes were recorded in November and December.
The Tarrant Regional Water District has requested advice from experts, including the U.S. Geological Survey, about the quakes. Inspections have been done on Eagle Mountain Reservoir, as a precaution, to check for cracks or other possible damage.
Geophysicists have placed a handful of small blue boxes, called NetQuake stations, inside homes, garages or schools along the Parker-Wise-Tarrant county line. The public can visit here to see ground movement in real time.
Data is recorded in real time, every hour, using wireless networks, the stations ping the information to the U.S. Geological Survey. SMU seismologist Heather DeShon is leading the team that will analyze the data.
“Our first goal is to just provide better earthquake locations for the local population,” she sad.
The stations will be active for at least six months, and maybe longer if the quakes continue.
“Once we know where the earthquakes are occurring, we can figure out the mechanism of the earthquake,” DeShon says. “If they’re associated with a fault, how big an earthquake might we expect in the future? And whether or not the seismicity is migrating spatially.”
Read more about the earthquakes:
1. Geophysicists Place Monitoring Boxes In North Texas' Earthquake Epicenter
2. What’s Causing Texas Earthquakes? SMU Study Explores Injection Wells From Drilling
3. Frequent Earthquakes In North Texas Rattle Azle Residents In Epicenter
