The Claim

Thanks to fracking Oklahoma now has more earthquakes than California

The graphic makes a number of claims here:

• Claims regarding the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma since 2009
• A claim regarding the number of projected earthquakes in 2014
• A claim that "Oklahoma now has more earthquakes than California"
• A claim that this is "thanks to fracking"
• The Oklahoma Geological Survey is cited as the source of this information

We have listed the claims in the rough order of how easy it is to verify these claims.

Claim 1: The number of earthquakes in OK since 2009

The Oklahoma Geological Survey's site does not readily provide the data in a handy graphic like we see here. In a number of their press releases and statement on the topic of fracking, they show a similar chart, but it is far less scary... because they use magnitude 3.0 earthquakes as the measure, not 2.5 magnitude (and since earthquake magnitude is a logarithmic scale, this is a very significant difference). Luckily, the site does provide full, complete data in a handy CSV file. Checking this data reveals... that the numbers are actually scarier than what is reported in the graphic. How's that? Let's take a look at the data.
When you dice up the data and look at 2009 - 2014, and filter only items where the "prefmag" column is greater than or equal to 3, we see numbers in nearly perfect agrement with the statement from the Oklahoma Geological Survey in 2013, updated May 2, 2014. The only difference is that at the time of writing, the file has date through July 7, 2014, and the 2012 numbers are slightly different for some unknown reason.
But when the filter is set to look for magnitudes 2.5 or greater, we get the following (the numbers in parenthesis are the claimed numbers in the graphic):

• 2009: 33 (38)
• 2010: 124 (104)
• 2011: 236 (97)
• 2012: 125 (64)
• 2013: 362 (222)
• 2014: 785 (94 as of 2/17, 780+ projected for 2014)

Either the creators of the graphic are applying an additional filter on the data (the numbers look much closer when the filter is set to "> 2.5" instead of ">= 2.5" which is the formula indicated by the chart label "2.5 magnitude or greater"), or we have misunderstood how to interpret this data file.

Claim Status: Verified

Claim 2: The number of earthquakes in OK for 2014 is projected to be 780+

The source of the 780+ number is not explained. This number does not seem to appear anywhere on the Oklahoma Geological Survey site. Taking the number of days in 2014 and using that as a ratio to turn the 94 recording earthquakes as of 2/17/2014 into a projection falls short of 780. Perhaps they are applying a weighting or trendline based on 2013 or earlier numbers?
While the original temptation was to cast doubts on the 2014 projection because less than two full months of data is not a very large sample to make a projection from, it is clear that the projection was quite an underestimate, unless there are suddenly no more earthquakes in Oklahoma for the remainder of 2014.

Claim Status: Verified to be an underestimate

Claim 3: Oklahoma has more earthquakes than California

This is one of the "money claims" because of California's reputation for having earthquakes. This is where the average person gets woken up a bit. But is it true?

Not even CLOSE.

The University of California Berkeley has a nice FAQ on earthquakes. What we learn is that from 1990 - 2011, California experienced "approximately 25,383" earthquakes per year on average. That trumps even Oklahoma's worst year by ten times. They also have a chart for that period, broken out by magnitude filters. California averages 1,950 quakes above 2.5 in that period of time, and 604 over 3.0.

So to claim that "Oklahoma has more earthquakes that California" is beyond false, it is a pure fabrication.

Claim status: Proven false

Claim 4: This is "thanks to fracking"

The Oklahoma Geological Survey makes no bones about it: there is an intense correlation between fracking activity and earthquakes in Oklahoma. But is the sharp increase in earthquakes "thanks to fracking"? The Oklahoma Geological Survery certainly is not willing to say so with such conviction.

From their release titled: Record Number of Oklahoma Tremors Raises Possibility of Damaging Earthquakes from 10/22/2013 and updated 5/2/2014:

• "The analysis suggests that a likely contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes is triggering by wastewater injected into deep geologic formations. This phenomenon is known as injection-induced seismicity, which has been documented for nearly half a century, with new cases identified recently in Arkansas, Ohio, Texas and Colorado."
• "OGS studies also indicate that some of the earthquakes in Oklahoma are due to fluid injection."

Their official Position Statement on Triggered or Induced Seismicity

• It is well understood that earthquakes can be triggered by fluid injection at depth."
• "While we are studying the possibility that some of this activity could be related to oil and gas operations, it is unlikely that all of the earthquakes can be attributed to human activities."
• "We consider a rush to judgment about earthquakes being triggered to be harmful to state, public, and industry interests. We are taking a measured and scientific approach to addressing issues so that any conclusion that earthquakes are linked to oil and gas activities can be scientifically defensible."
• "Earthquakes often cluster in space and time in any tectonic setting, making any short-term trends in seismicity difficult to interpret."
• "Many processes are thought to occur within the Earth that could potentially generate the seismicity patterns observed in recent years."

Finally, from the presentation named Potential for induced seismicity within Oklahoma:

• "Magnitudes generally less than 0" for earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing, where the duration of injection "may be weeks"; these are labeled "lower risk" with a maximum observed magnitude of 3.1 - 3.4
• Water disposal wells, with an injection duration that "may be decades" are listed as "higher risk" with a maximum observed magnitude of 5.3 - 5.7
• The majority of earthquakes in Oklahoma are near known fault lines, but so are the majority of injection wells, making it difficult to assess if any given earthquake is natural or produced by the injection well
• "Given the spatial distribution of both UIC Class II wells and earthquakes with respect to faults it is possible some earthquakes may be induced – But there can also be spatial coincidences"

To summarize what the Oklahoma Geological Survey says: the jury is still out as to whether or not Oklahoma's recent increase in earthquakes is due to fracking, but at least some of Oklahoma's earthquake activity is due to fracking.

Claim Status: Claim wildly overstates its case based on provable data

Claim 5: These claims are backed by the Oklahoma Geological Survey

As you can see, only Claim 1 earthquake statistics for 2009 - 2014) and Claim 2 (projected earthquake statistics for 2014) have any basis in information from the Oklahoma Geological Survey. The remainder of the claims are either completely false (the comparison to California's earthquake statistics) or a gross overstatement drawing from facts (assigning the blame for the increase on fracking).

Conclusion

Is fracking presenting a problem for Oklahoma in terms of earthquakes? The short-term trend numbers are frightening and the Oklahoma Geological Survey certainly thinks that at least some of that short-term trend is indeed related to fracking. But the truth is, there is too much confusion in the data to be able to state wih certainty that the short-term trend is "thanks to fracking" or that the short-term trend will be consistent enough on a geological timeline to actually be a long-term trend or just a blip in the dataset.

While it is clear that this matter should not be treated lightly, making up false comparisons for the sake of scaring people is not an intellectually honest rhetorical technique.