It has been more than 10 years since fracking began transforming Argentina’s Vaca Muerta rock formation into a hydrocarbon megaproject. The ground started to shake – and it has not stopped since.
Vaca Muerta stretches across the western province of Neuquén and into neighbouring Mendoza, Río Negro and La Pampa. Its scale makes this basin the world’s second-largest deposit of shale gas and the fourth-largest of unconventional oil. Fracking, which enables the breaking up of underground rock with pressurised water and sand to release and extract gas or oil, has made the basin highly sought-after.
The first wells were drilled in Vaca Muerta in the early 2010s, marking the start of Argentina’s shale extraction story. Vaca Muerta’s early wells could extend underground to around 10 “stages” of fracturing, made horizontally at intervals in the rock. Since then, technological advancements have allowed companies to increase well activity, while the number of fracturing stages has surpassed 50.
The increase in fracturing stages has been linked to an increase in earthquakes in the region. This is because the injected water and sand can activate pre-existing geological faults, causing “induced” earthquakes.
Neuquén ended the first half of 2025 with its highest-ever number of recorded induced earthquakes, according to our surveys at the Induced Seismicity Observatory (OSI) in Patagonia. It is now Argentina’s main province for oil and gas production. Neuquén has also never trembled so much – and everything seems to indicate that each year will establish new seismic heights.
The OSI registered 548 earthquakes in Vaca Muerta between 2018 and June 2025. All of them are associated with hydraulic fracturing operations. The first semester of the year saw 36 earthquakes associated with fracking, a number that exceeds the 33 in the same period in 2024, 27 in 2023, 10 in 2022, 11 in 2021 or the 28 in 2020.
Inducement with impunity
Induced earthquakes are like any other earthquake. They release energy from underground that is transmitted to the surface. They have three main effects: first, structural damage to buildings, such as cracks in houses, sheds and buildings; second, landslides, which are a direct risk to people; and the third is the most silent (but equally worrying), the effect on people’s mental health. Locals are awoken at all hours and are frightened by the earthquakes.
The infrastructure of the oil industry is also affected. Pipelines, wells, towers, reservoirs, tanks, pools, jetties and roads are all deteriorating with the recurrent exposure to earthquakes. This could lead to surface incidents, such as spills, leaks, fires and explosions.
The tremors could also cause underground infrastructure to collapse. Rupturing of underground pipes could facilitate the seepage of fluids between formations, inadvertently linking aquifers with hydrocarbon deposits, or with fracking’s highly polluting waste liquids.
In spite of this, induced seismicity is not considered – nor legally required to be – in the environmental impact assessments of any of the companies operating in Vaca Muerta, which include the state’s own YPF, as well as Shell, Pan American Energy, Pluspetrol and Vista Energy. This has created serious environmental and social consequences.
Various organisations intend to take legal action to settle responsibilities and establish the necessary actions to control the situation. For example, The Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Farn), an Argentine NGO, filed an injunction in collaboration with local citizens, but it was rejected by the supreme court in August 2024.
Civil participation will be crucial to the future success of such efforts.
Seismic traffic lights
Facing a future increasingly controlled by the capitalist interests of large corporations, we must urgently develop tools that people can use to defend their environments, ameliorate health risks and improve their quality of life.
Intiatives such as seismic traffic lights are already in use in countries including the United States and Canada. For example, an earthquake measuring 2 on the Richter scale translates to a green light – fracking can continue. If it rises to 2.5, the company responsible must notify the regulatory body and scale back its operations. Beyond 3.5, the fracking must cease until the state can make an assessment.
These visual warning systems inform populations of the level of seismic activity in a given area, and oblige the state to take control of subsoil monitoring and to manage the severity of the tremors. Warnings will not eliminate risks, but enforcement through effective legislation will be a step in the right direction, although it’s a difficult thing to achieve.
Facing a future increasingly controlled by the capitalist interests of large corporations, we must urgently develop tools that people can use to defend their environment
The OSI has prepared a draft bill that proposes seismic traffic lights, as well as 15-kilometre fracking exclusion zones around towns, reservoirs and other sensitive areas. It is not a law to prohibit fracking, but it would put exclusion zones in place where earthquake faults have been identified.
So far, we have presented our draft bill to the various blocs of the Neuquén legislature, the offices of the provincial executive, various departments of the National University of Comahue, and academic institutes such as Seismic Prevention (Inpres) and the Volponi Geophysical Seismological Institute (IGSV). We have even presented it to several oil companies. We hope it will be taken up by political groups, social movements or companies, and eventually by the government.
The state is the ultimate regulatory authority. As such, it should determine fracking exclusion areas to protect populations and civil infrastructure.
