Illuminating the Rupturing of Microseismic Sources in an Injection‐Induced Earthquake Experiment

Huang, Yihe; Barros, Louis De; Cappa, Frédéric

doi:10.1029/2019gl083856

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Recently, based on field experiments and numerical simulations, Bhattacharya and Viesca (2019), Cappa et al (2018Cappa et al ( , 2019, De Barros et al ( , 2018, and Guglielmi et al (2015) have proposed a model of injection-induced aseismic slip which transmits an elastic stress perturbation that triggers seismicity beyond the fluid-pressurized zone. The important role of aseismic slip was recently confirmed in hydraulic fracturing-induced seismicity at the kilometer-scale in a deep reservoir (Eyre et al, 2019), and in a comparison of injection-induced earthquakes in in situ experiments and in the Central United States (Huang et al, 2019). Some studies have concluded that stress transfer between seismic events (i.e., earthquake interactions) can also play a significant role during a sequence of induced seismicity (Catalli et al, 2016;Schoenball & Ellsworth, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Stress Perturbation From Aseismic Slip Drives the Seismic Front During Fluid Injection in a Permeable Fault

et al. 2020

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Fluid pressure changes affect fault stability and can promote the initiation of earthquakes and aseismic slip. However, the relationship between seismic and aseismic fault slip during fluid injection remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate, through 3‐D hydromechanical modeling, the spatiotemporal evolution of seismicity and aseismic slip on a permeable, slip‐weakening fault subjected to a local injection of fluid, under different prestress conditions. The model results in an expanding aseismic slip region, which concentrates shear stress at its edge and triggers seismicity. The aseismic slip dominates the slip budget, whatever the initial fault stress. We find that the seismicity is collocated with the aseismic rupture front rather than with the fluid pressure diffusion front. On faults initially far from failure, the aseismic rupture front is located behind or at the pressure front. On faults initially closer to failure, the model predicts that both the rupture front and the seismicity outpace the pressurized zone, resulting in a sharp increase of the migration velocity and released moment of the seismicity. Insights gained from this modeling study exhibit various features that are observed in sequences of induced earthquakes in both field experiments and natural reservoir systems and can help guide the interpretation of past and future observations of induced seismicity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Stress Perturbation From Aseismic Slip Drives the Seismic Front During Fluid Injection in a Permeable Fault

et al. 2020

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“…However, the spectral ratio fitting method only works for a small subset of events (or event pairs) that are collocated with distinguishable spectral ratios. A balance between the moment ratio and noise levels is required to allow resolvable differences in spectral corner frequencies (Huang et al, 2019). A good agreement between estimates from the clustered-Q single spectrum and spectral ratio corner frequency methods could further suggest the robustness of both refinement methods.…”

Section: Data and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Well Proximity Governing Stress Drop Variation and Seismic Attenuation Associated With Hydraulic Fracturing Induced Earthquakes

Harrington

Kao

et al. 2020

JGR Solid Earth

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We use broadband seismic data collected within 3 km of a hydraulic fracturing (HF) well in northeast British Columbia, Canada, to estimate the stress drop values of HF-induced earthquakes and their spatial variation. Applying both spectral ratio and clustered single-spectra fitting methods to 484 induced earthquakes (M-1.0 to 3.0), we find that earthquakes close to the injection well have lower stress drop values than those at greater distance. Stress drop values are generally invariant within clusters either proximal (~0.1-1 MPa) or distal (~1-10 MPa) to the well, suggesting that dynamic ruptures in rocks with similar rheological properties tend to have relatively constant stress drop values. Clustered single spectrum fitting also suggests that the seismic quality factor (Q) is lower proximal to the well. We interpret the lower stress drop values and higher seismic attenuation proximal to the well as a result of higher fracture density and/or elevated pore pressure in the rock matrix due to hydraulic stimulation. Plain Language Summary Earthquake static stress drop is the average difference in stress across the fault surface before and after an earthquake rupture. It is a measure of the stress released by fault slip. Investigating the stress drop of induced earthquakes helps us understand the causal relation between hydraulic fracturing (HF) and earthquake source properties. Here we study the source parameters of 484 HF induced earthquakes in the Montney Play of northeast British Columbia. We find that stress drop increases with distance to the injection well but is roughly constant within the respective proximal or distal groups of events. We also find that seismic energy loss during wave propagation (seismic attenuation) is higher near the well. The observations lead us to interpret that either the higher fracture density and/or elevated pore pressures near the well prevent the crustal rocks from storing and releasing larger magnitudes of stress at distances approximately <1 km from the well.

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“…However, the wide range of ∆σ values (over two orders of magnitude) in cluster G3 might offer some hint. It could reflect a transition from aseismic to seismic slip (Huang et al., 2019; Lengliné et al., 2014), repeating ruptures being limited by aseismic slip (Cauchie et al., 2020), or the injection‐related variation of effective normal stress along the fault (e.g., Staszek et al., 2017). Since the stress perturbation at ∼1 km distance away from well #460875 may not be large enough to justify the variation of ∆σ in cluster G3, we expect the two scenarios involving aseismic slip to be more likely.…”

Section: Implications and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Seismic Quiescence to Surged Activity After Decades of Wastewater Disposal: A Case Study in Central‐West Alberta, Canada

Kao

Visser

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Injection-induced earthquakes (IIE) are part of the inconvenient consequences of the unconventional oil and gas production. Although only a very small fraction of injecting wells are seismogenic (<1%; Ghofrani & Atkinson, 2020;Schultz et al., 2020), injections related to wastewater disposal (WD) and hydraulic fracturing (HF) have been reported to cause a surge of seismicity rate near the injection sites and the occasional occurrence of damaging earthquakes (M4+; e.g.,

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Illuminating the Rupturing of Microseismic Sources in an Injection‐Induced Earthquake Experiment

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Stress Perturbation From Aseismic Slip Drives the Seismic Front During Fluid Injection in a Permeable Fault

Stress Perturbation From Aseismic Slip Drives the Seismic Front During Fluid Injection in a Permeable Fault

Well Proximity Governing Stress Drop Variation and Seismic Attenuation Associated With Hydraulic Fracturing Induced Earthquakes

From Seismic Quiescence to Surged Activity After Decades of Wastewater Disposal: A Case Study in Central‐West Alberta, Canada

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