Oklahoma Rocked by 123 Quakes—One Near Missouri

It's amazing what you can learn when you get curious about something. This is an example of that. Did you know that the state of Oklahoma has been rocked by 123 earthquakes in just the past 30 days and one of them was right on the Missouri border.

While I am a self-confessed earthquake nerd, I normally keep my focus on what's happening in Missouri and Illinois since that's my backyard. But, as I was doing my daily check of the USGS earthquake page, I noticed something interesting that caused me to dig a little deeper. I have noticed a recent uptick of quakes in Missouri's neighbor state of Oklahoma and decided to query the USGS database to see how many have hit the Sooner State in just the past month. This is the stunning result. This map shows 123 Oklahoma earthquakes in just the past 30 days.

There are several important details to know about these Oklahoma earthquakes. First, not all of them were tiny. The largest on June 26, 2025 was 3.4 in magnitude and felt by many in Oklahoma. Second, not all of these earthquakes are organic seismic movements of plates and/or earthquake faults. The diamond-shape figures on the USGS map are quarry blasts that were large enough to be measured by the USGS. That's what happened on June 16, 2025 near Fairland, Oklahoma when a 1.3 magnitude quarry blast was measured right across the Missouri border.

What's causing all of these Oklahoma quakes?

The answers and theories are controversial. The USGS says they are NOT caused by fracking, but injections of waste water into the Earth. The question has been raised if gas production could cause a damaging quake and the answers are foggy as of now. No matter what the cause, Oklahoma has been rocking and that doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.