1) "Oil and gas drilling can do all kinds of nasty things to the earth -- including contaminating groundwater, leaving giant waste pits behind (not to mention those big holes), employing toxic chemicals, necessitating road-building, marring views, and polluting the air -- but destabilizing the entire planet ain't one of 'em. Given that there are so many dang oil and gas wells (some 700,000 in the U.S. alone), your concern is understandable. But even with so many holes, the planet isn't in danger of large-scale geologic rockin' and rollin'. You see, the deepest among the drill holes plunge down about six miles, and the earth's crust averages some 20 to 40 miles deep on the continents. And while extracting oil -- an estimated 1 trillion barrels worldwide so far -- can have some geological consequences, they aren't major. Frankly, pollution from drilling and burning oil and gas is much more of a danger. Let's revisit Earth Science class, and remember that earthquakes are caused by the shifting of various tectonic plates that nudge each other and catch on one another and generally play a hefty game of bumper cars, though with billions of tons of rock. Fun! The crashing about causes some 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year, though only about a fifth of them can be felt by humans, and only about 100 of them cause damage. While the plate drama and other natural geological goings-on are what cause practically all quakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, it is possible for humans to cause earthquakes as well. Don't you feel powerful? This is oil-related, though not directly a result of drilling. USGS says the cause of the few earthquakes triggered by humans "was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies." They go on to reassure us that most of these quakes were minor, and that other human activities, even nuclear detonations, have not been linked to earthquake activity. Whew. Since tsunamis are essentially big water surges caused by earthquakes, and since drilling itself doesn't cause quakes, tsunamis are one more destructive phenomenon that is beyond drilling's purview. Tidal waves, as it happens, are caused by the many and varied gravitational interactions between the moon, the sun, and the earth, a force oil companies haven't been able to mess with -- yet. But here's a wacky new angle to worry about, if you're so inclined: While drilling for oil doesn't cause earthquakes, burning oil -- and heating up the planet in the process -- just might. As the Canadian Press reported this summer, "A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions." So, we seem to be on shaky ground after all." Source and further information: http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2006/09/13/earthquakes/ Further information: - "Will oil drilling increase earthquake activity?": http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060905014314AAbBzP2 2) "Large events that occur along fracture or fault lines really don't have anything to do with oil extraction. They happen because one part of the mantle is trying go under a plate or one large land mass wants to go north and the other wants to go south. A lot (excuse the pun) stress is cause in the middle. Series2's mom may not be that far off track when it comes to localized events that occur in the area of drilling fields. I has been recognized that compression or change of can cause a certain amount of seismic activity." Source and further information: http://www.theweathervane.info/forums/f16/anybody-know-how-many-barrels-oil-5332.html 3) "On May 28, 2006, PT Lapindo Brantas targeted gas in the Kujung Formation carbonates in the Brantas PSC area by drilling a borehole named the 'Banjar-Panji 1 exploration well'. In the first stage of drilling the drill string first went through a thick clay seam (500–1,300 m deep), then sands, shells, volcanic debris and finally into permeable carbonate rocks. At this stage the borehole was surrounded by a steel casing to help stabilise it. At 5:00 a.m. local time (UTC+8) a second stage of drilling began and the drill string went deeper, to about 2,834 m (9,298 ft), this time without a protective casing, after which water, steam and a small amount of gas erupted at a location about 200 m southwest of the well. Two further eruptions occurred on the second and the third of June about 800–1000 m northwest of the well, but these stopped on June 5, 2006. During these eruptions, hydrogen sulphide gas was released and local villagers observed hot mud, thought to be at a temperature of around 60 °C (140 °F). From a model developed by geologists working in the UK, the drilling pipe penetrated the overpressured limestone, causing entrainment of mud by water. The influx of water to the well bore caused a hydrofracture, but the steam and water did not enter the borehole; they penetrated the surrounding overburden and pressured strata. The extra pressure formed fractures around the borehole that propagated 1-2 km to the surface and emerged 200 m away from the well. The most likely cause of these hydraulic fractures was the unprotected drill string in the second stage of drilling. Borehole protection by steel casing is a common procedure in oil or gas exploration." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow

maybe to the earth's crust where on the surface there is life. and miles below there used to be life. does that sense? no its not a lubricant. it is a product of the planet.

Oil can be a lubricant, deepending on where the oil is, so don't count anything out we can't see under our feet. Recently, the earthquake in China (Magnitude 7.8, I believe) was claimed to have been caused by the large dam built, due to the water weight. Who would've thought that was possible? We are like tiny fleas on a giant, extracting blood from all sorts of places. Oil drilling in the ocean can go deeper, thus penetrating farther into the crust. Also, we don't even know where old faults are now that everything has all been jumbled up since Pangaea. So, in answer to your query, probably not in most cases; although, there are always exceptions to every rule, and everything else under our sun.