36th tremor prompts new calls from five Lancashire MPs to halt fracking

A tremor of 0.7 ML (local magnitude) was recorded by the British Geological Survey on Sunday.

A group of five Lancashire MPs, including Blackpool’s Gordon Marsden, have written to the energy secretary to call for a halt in the light of the tremors.

Today Claire Stephenson, from Frack Free Lancashire, said: “Cuadrilla commissioned their own report in 2011 which stated: ‘Stronger events occur when some of the fluid penetrates into faults and in rare cases, events with magnitude up to 0.8 ML have been detected’.

“So there we have it: these events are considered “rare”, yet Cuadrilla have been recorded across national press, urging the government to change the seismic trigger regulations further.

Cuadrilla has also previously stated: ‘Very little of the fracture fluid actually ever returns to the surface. So when we inject the water in there most of it does not come back’.

“It is clear that Preston New Road is a complete experiment, and one which we are having to live with the consequences – both known and unknown.”

Cuadrilla has stated the tremors are so small and deep underground that they pose no potential threat.

A spokesman has said: “These are tiny seismic events that are detected by our monitors as we fracture the shale rock 2km underground and are many hundreds of orders of magnitude below what is capable of being felt.”

Meanwhile, Simon Roscoe Blevins, 26, one of the campaigners jailed then freed after a protest on top of a lorry at the site, told a national newspaper: “I had a conversation with the driver –

I said I was sorry and explained it was nothing personal but I was doing what I felt was right and important.”