Does Natural Gas Extraction Cause Little Earthquakes?

It's a rare occasion, but sometimes it happens: Although northern Germany is -- seismologically spoken -- a quite region, in recent decades little earthquakes of magnitude 3 to 5 occurred. Horst Radermacher investigates for FAZ (5.4.2006) potential causes, and especially whether natural gas exploitation may be tracked down as a cause. A recent talk by a seismologist of a government-run institution opted for gas extraction as promoting earthquakes, however, he didn't anticipated the huge public response on the issue.