Earthquakes shake El Paso over the weekend

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Pasoans have felt a series of earthquakes over the past few days, despite the epicenters being hours away.

Late on February 14th, a 5.0 magnitude earthquake in Culberson County rattled the Borderland, and then another one hit early this morning, this time a 4.7.

ABC-7 spoke to a seismologist, Dr. Aaron Velasco, who says the reason for these quakes is fracking.

"There's all the old faults in that region. They've been there for millions, if not a billion years. That's how old these are. And faults are just natural break in the ground, and what's happening is that there's natural stress. It's on those faults, but it's been dormant for years and years and years."

Fracking is when oil companies will inject large amounts of water into the ground to force out oil from the rocks. In the process, the force of the injection shakes the ground and loosens up dormant faults, creating minor earthquakes.

There have been over 200 earthquakes in the same area of Culberson County since the start of 2025, with the strongest occurring this morning and last Friday. That number is actually down since 2017, with Velasco saying that thousands have occurred there, but the Texas Railroad Commission has worked to prevent earthquakes from happening. The issue, however, is the magnitude of earthquakes has risen since 2017.

"So our hope is that this is going to cease, that those earthquakes will diminish and we won't feel any earthquakes from that area here."