No, it’s not Carole King singing her classic. Though it does cause hearts to tremble, it’s something a lot less edifying -- the continued rumblings of manmade earthquakes resulting from hydraulic fracturing and the underground disposal of wastewater resulting from the process.

The latest incident -- a small earthquake that occurred last week in Braxton County, West Virginia -- has been linked by state regulators to underground disposal of drilling wastewater. It follows 11 earthquakes in Ohio between March and December of 2011 that have been linked to Marcellus wastewater injection.

That’s on top of small tremors in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, British Columbia, and other shale-gas-producing areas (though some of the Oklahoma tremors were not related to fracking). And last spring, a UK energy company admitted that its hydraulic fracturing project probably caused a few surprisingly large earthquakes in Lancashire.

What the frack is going on?

Explanations offered for the rumbling include disposal wells that have been overpressurized, and previously unknown underground faults lubricated by wastewater. Scientific papers have suggested a proportional relationship between the volume of fluid injected into the ground and the strength of the resulting quake.

The incidents and emerging research point to a need for revamped regulations, including more careful site selection and additional seismic testing, both before wastewater wells are drilled and during their operation. The challenge is significant -- in the U.S., 60 million barrels a day of wastewater are produced from oil and gas drilling. That number is not likely to shrink any time soon with current drilling practices.

Whether the earth and hearts start to trembling whenever fracking’s around depends on our ability to define and apply better science and standards to the demands of the shale gas era.