In society’s ever-deeper dig for energy, one of the risks is causing the Earth to move.

The most recent dramatic example came on New Year’s Eve outside of Youngstown, Ohio. A 4.0 earthquake was the last and largest of a series of temblors that prompted state officials to halt nearby underground disposal of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. There were no reports of serious damage or injury, but the impact in the energy world could be significant.

In the past two years, there have been three other cases in the United States and one in England (see map) where regulators or scientists traced links between seismic activity and fracking, or the disposal of briny and polluted