Microseismicity is recorded during an underground mine development by a network of seven boreholes. After an initial preprocessing, 488 events are identified with a minimum of 12 P-wave arrival-time picks per event. We have developed a three-step approach for P-wave passive seismic tomography: (1) a probabilistic grid search algorithm for locating the events, (2) joint inversion for a 1D velocity model and event locations using absolute arrival times, and (3) double-difference tomography using reliable differential arrival times obtained from waveform crosscorrelation. The originally diffusive microseismic-event cloud tightens after tomography between depths of 0.45 and 0.5 km toward the center of the tunnel network. The geometry of the event clusters suggests occurrence on a planar geologic fault. The best-fitting plane has a strike of 164.7° north and dip angle of 55.0° toward the west. The study region has known faults striking in the north-northwest–south-southeast direction with a dip angle of 60°, but the relocated event clusters do not fall along any mapped fault. Based on the cluster geometry and the waveform similarity, we hypothesize that the microseismic events occur due to slips along an unmapped fault facilitated by the mining activity. The 3D velocity model we obtained from double-difference tomography indicates lateral velocity contrasts between depths of 0.4 and 0.5 km. We interpret the lateral velocity contrasts in terms of the altered rock types due to ore deposition. The known geotechnical zones in the mine indicate a good correlation with the inverted velocities. Thus, we conclude that passive seismic tomography using microseismic data could provide information beyond the excavation damaged zones and can act as an effective tool to complement geotechnical evaluations.

Hydraulic fracturing in low-permeability hydrocarbon reservoirs creates/reactivates a fracture network leading to microseismic events. We have developed a simplified model of the evolution of the microseismic cloud based on the opening of a planar fracture cavity and its effect on elastic stresses and pore pressure diffusion during fluid injection in hydraulic fracturing treatments. Using a material balance equation, we compute the crack tip propagation over time assuming that the hydraulic fracture is shaped as a single penny-shaped cavity. Results indicate that in low-permeability formations, the crack tip propagates much faster than the pore pressure diffusion front thereby triggering the microseismic events farthest from the injection domain at any given time during fluid injection. We use the crack tip propagation to explain the triggering front observed in distance versus time plots of published microseismic data examples from hydraulic fracturing treatments of low-permeability hydrocarbon reservoirs. We conclude that attributing the location of the microseismic triggering front purely to pore pressure diffusion from the injection point may lead to incorrect estimates of the hydraulic diffusivity by multiple orders of magnitude for low-permeability formations. Moreover, the opening of the fracture cavity creates stress shadow zones perpendicular to the principal fracture walls in which microseismic triggering due to the elastic stress perturbations is suppressed. Microseismic triggering in this stress shadow region may be attributed mainly to pore pressure diffusion. We use the width, instead of the longest size, of the microseismic cloud to obtain an enhanced diffusivity measure, which may be useful for subsequent production simulations.

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We perform three-dimensional attenuation tomography using microseismic data recorded during an underground mine development. The whole path attenuation parameter t * is obtained by least-squares inversion of P-wave amplitude spectra of the events recorded by 7 monitoring wells each containing 4 3C geophones. For tomographic inversion, we use 292 events out of the total 488 identified events for which the corner frequencies ranged between 120 to 210 Hz. The inverted quality factor Q varies between 9 to 100 with the event cluster location characterized by low Q value of 10. Two high Q regions of 45-55 are located, one between 0 to 0.2 km East and 0.3 to 0.5 km North, and another centered around 0.5 km East and 0.25 km North. The high (-low) Q values show a good correlation with the high (-low) velocities present in the velocity tomography model. Thus, the attenuation model can reveal heterogeneity present within the mine thereby providing valuable geological insights in regions not accessible for direct sampling.