A team of researchers from Stanford and Duke Universities have conducted a new study that links the development of fossil fuels to earthquakes in an area.

Originally, fossil fuels yielded numerous benefits to the world. The study states that the development of natural gases, especially for producing electrical power, can boost local economies and even reduce air pollution from fuels that need to be burned.

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Apart from pollution, it also helps in avoiding climate change.

Fossil fuels also have cons though. Methane has been leaking out in several parts of America. Trains that carry crude oil are prone to catastrophic derailments.

However, the most important one that the study has pointed out is how the development of these fossil fuels can cause earthquakes.

They state that the process of fracking, or of injecting liquid into subterranean rocks and the like to open fissures and gather oil, is one such action that brings about earthquakes. Companies also inject their waste waters deep underground which is also a cause.

Several studies have already reported on these injections and the earthquakes they can cause.

A study from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stated that underground injections of wastewater from a coalbed methane natural gas production field in the border of New Mexico and Colorado has been causing earthquakes since 2001.

One of the biggest had the magnitude of 5.3 and hit Colorado in 2011.

Cornell University had a similar study in Oklahoma which yielded similar results. Many of the earthquakes were over Magnitude 3.0, but a Magnitude 5.7 quake hit Oklahoma and destroyed 14 homes in 2011.

More and more studies are springing up - like the oil that is being dug up - saying that earthquakes are caused by fracking and other techniques people use to get oil.

The USGS does not rule out the possibility of even larger earthquakes coming due to these techniques.

Rob Jackson, a professor of environmental earth system science at Stanford University, said that earthquakes can be reduced by avoiding faults and by not pumping fluids too quickly into the ground.

TagsFossil fuels, fracking, earthquakes, stanford, Duke