The role of aseismic slip in hydraulic fracturing–induced seismicity

Eyre, Thomas S.; Eaton, David W.; Garagash, Dmitry I.; Zecevic, Megan; Venieri, Marco; Weir, Ronald; Lawton, Donald C.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aav7172

Cited by 222 publications

(265 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Such stress drop/rupture velocity variation is consistent with the results of both laboratory and meso-scale experiments that aseismic slip near the injection point gradually transitions to seismic slip at further distances with a continuum of slip speeds (15,18). Recent modeling efforts have also demonstrated the scenario as numerically plausible (14,16). Thus, we interpret EHWs as events that nucleate through loading of adjacent aseismic slip, rupture at slower slip speeds and/or lower stress drops, and bridge (induced) aseismic slip at the wellbore to typical seismic rupture on more distal faults.…”

Section: The Above Reasoning Begs the Question Of What Is The Most VIsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Laboratory and experimental work, including larger meso-scale experiments, have shown that loading can generate a continuum of slip behavior ranging from aseismic to seismic, and in some cases aseismic slip can transition to seismic slip within a single slip episode (15,18). In addition, modeling studies of aseismic slip in fluid injection environments have quantitatively validated laboratory aseismic slip observations, proving that (1) the aseismic slip front could outpace the diffusion front, and (2) a limited amount of aseismic slip is sufficient to trigger larger magnitude events in cases where it interacts with nearby, larger faults (14,(16)(17). However, to the best of our knowledge, direct field observations of aseismic or slow slip signals prior to the onset of seismic slip have not been clearly documented outside of experimental injection environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…faults (14)(15)(16)(17)(18). Under the optimal geomechanical (e.g., if the hosting fault is critically stressed) and compositional (e.g., high content of clay and total organic carbon) conditions, aseismic slip fronts can move ahead of the pore-pressure diffusion and may interact with nearby, larger faults to trigger significant events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fluid-injection induced earthquakes characterized by hybrid-frequency waveforms manifest the transition from aseismic to seismic slip

Harrington

Kao

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Aseismic slip loading has recently been proposed as a complementary mechanism for moderate earthquakes (M3+) induced over the short operational period of hydraulic fracturing stimulations but located several kilometers away from the wellbore. However, aseismic/slow slip signals linked to fluid injection-induced earthquakes remain largely undocumented to date. Here we report a new type of induced seismic signal consisting of an impulsive broadband onset followed by protracted low-frequency ringing. Earthquakes characterized by hybrid-frequency waveforms (EHWs) differ from ordinary induced earthquakes by having broader P and S-pulses (implying longer source durations) and lower corner frequencies (implying either slower rupture speeds, lower stress drop values, or a combination of both). The characteristics described above are identical to low-frequency earthquakes found in plate boundary zones. EHWs could thus manifest the source process that bridges the slow (aseismic) slip inferred by recent modeling and observations near the wellbore to seismic slip at greater distances.

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Section: The Above Reasoning Begs the Question Of What Is The Most VIsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

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Fluid-injection induced earthquakes characterized by hybrid-frequency waveforms manifest the transition from aseismic to seismic slip

Harrington

Kao

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…While previous studies have provided overall knowledge of the ambient stress field in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, a high‐resolution stress map is needed to systematically assess fault criticality under the local stress field. This is especially important with the growing evidence that poroelastic stress (e.g., Barbour et al, ; Deng et al, ; Goebel et al, ; Segall & Lu, ) and aseismic creep propagation (e.g., Cappa et al, ; Eyre et al, ) could, in part, drive some of the induced seismicity. In this study, we develop a stress map with relatively high spatial resolution using a suite of 2,047 focal mechanism solutions obtained from Oklahoma and southern Kansas, allowing for more precise quantitative analysis of the fault stress state.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deciphering the Stress State of Seismogenic Faults in Oklahoma and Southern Kansas Based on an Improved Stress Map

et al. 2019

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Fault location and geometry are critical considerations in the reactivation of preexisting faults. Here, we combine relocated earthquake catalogs and focal mechanisms to delineate seismogenic faults in Oklahoma and southern Kansas and analyze their stress state. We first identify and map seismogenic faults based on earthquake clustering. We then obtain an improved stress map using 2,047 high‐quality focal mechanisms. The regional stress map shows a gradual transition from oblique normal faulting in western Oklahoma to strike‐slip faulting in central and eastern Oklahoma. Stress amplitude ratio shows a strong correlation with pore pressure from hydrogeologic models, suggesting that pore pressure exhibits a measurable influence on stress patterns. Finally, we assess fault stress state via 3‐D Mohr circles; a parameter understress is used to quantify the level of fault criticality (with 0 meaning critically stressed faults and 1 meaning faults with no applied shear stress). Our results indicate that most active faults have near vertical planes (planarity >0.8 and dip >70°), and there is a strong correlation between fault length and maximum magnitude on each fault. The fault trends show prominent conjugate sets that strike [55–75°] and [105–125°]. A comparison with mapped sedimentary faults and basement fractures reveals common tectonic control. Based on 3‐D Mohr circles, we find that 78% of the faults are critically stressed (understress ≤0.2), while several seismogenic faults are misoriented with high understress (>0.4). Fault geometry and local stress fields may be used to evaluate potential seismic hazard, as the largest earthquakes tend to occur on long, critically stressed faults.

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“…• For microseimic monitoring (Eyre et al, 2019;White and Foxall, 2016), earthquakes with different signatures but with roughly the same hypocenter x 0 , i.e., repeating earthquakes that rupture the same fault zone, generate required instances w(t; τ ) (see Fig. 1a).…”

Section: Time Lapse Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

SymAE: an autoencoder with embedded physical symmetries for passive time-lapse monitoring

Bharadwaj¹,

Li²,

Demanet³

2020

Preprint

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We introduce SymAE, an auto-encoder architecture that learns to separate multichannel passive-seismic datasets into qualitatively interpretable components: one component corresponds to path-specific effects associated with subsurface properties while the other component corresponds to the spectral signatureof the passive sources. This information is represented by two latent codes produced by our encoder. The novelty that enables SymAE to achieve this separation lies with the physical symmetries that are directly embedded into the architecturaldesign of the encoder. These symmetries impose that 1. the output of the source-specific encoder is indifferent to the ordering of the receivers; and 2. the output of the path-specific encoder is indifferent to the source signatures. Our numericalexperiments demonstrate that this is sufficient for achieving the intended separation.The ability to qualitatively distinguish between source- and path-induced effects plays a critical role for time-lapse monitoring of visco-acoustic subsurface models where data is generated from induced passive seismic sources e.g., during CO2 injectionor hydraulic fracturing. Here the problem suffers from inherent ambiguities in whether the time-lapse changes in the data should be attributed to subsurface changes such as P-wave velocity, mass density, and seismic quality factor (i.e., path effects) or because of difficulties in physically-reproducing the source wavelet (i.e. source effects). SymAE resolves these ambiguities by construction and enables reliable subsurface monitoring in these settings. We provide numerical results to show that we can accurately detect changes arising from both effects.

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The role of aseismic slip in hydraulic fracturing–induced seismicity

Cited by 222 publications

References 63 publications

Fluid-injection induced earthquakes characterized by hybrid-frequency waveforms manifest the transition from aseismic to seismic slip

Fluid-injection induced earthquakes characterized by hybrid-frequency waveforms manifest the transition from aseismic to seismic slip

Deciphering the Stress State of Seismogenic Faults in Oklahoma and Southern Kansas Based on an Improved Stress Map

SymAE: an autoencoder with embedded physical symmetries for passive time-lapse monitoring

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