The Importance of Accurate Earthquake Source Information for Understanding the Cause of Induced Seismicity: The Case of Mentone M4.9 Earthquake in West Texas
Session: Mechanisms of Induced Seismicity: Pressure Diffusion, Elastic Stressing and Aseismic Slip III
Type: Oral
Date: 4/20/2021
Presentation Time: 02:30 PM Pacific
Description:
Since 2017 the Texas Seismological Network (TexNet) has increased the number of seismic stations in the Delaware Basin, West Texas. A one-dimensional earth model determined from earthquake tomography is used on daily operations to provide earthquake source information for the detected seismicity.
On March 26th, 2020 at 3:16pm (Local Time) an earthquake of M4.9 occurred in west Texas along the Culberson-Reeves County Line (CRCL). The nearest city to the epicenter, 43 km to the east is Mentone, TX, in Loving County. The earthquake was recorded on seismic stations up to 270 km away from the epicenter, with the closest station at 26 km. Seismicity in this area is reported in the TexNet catalog from October 2019 and continued up to November of 2020.
In order to show that specific Oil and Gas operations in the area are the cause of seismicity it is necessary to provide accurate earthquake source information (i.e., epicenter distribution, hypocentral depth, focal mechanism, etc). We present earthquake relocation and full waveform moment tensor inversion using two local earth models and waveforms from close stations of two private arrays (less than 20 km epicentral distance). These results provide detailed information on the seismicity and on foreshock and main sock source characterization. These detailed analyses will also help to compare the characteristics and mechanisms of West Texas seismicity with the active and very well documented induced earthquakes in Oklahoma.
We examine these results through spatiotemporal association of seismicity and pore pressure modeling with respect to Oil and Gas operations. We discuss hypocentral depth uncertainty, the triggering mechanism of induced seismicity in the area and how the accumulation of stress may have caused the M4.9 event.
Presenting Author: Alexandros Savvaidis
Student Presenter: No
Authors
Alexandros Savvaidis Presenting Author Corresponding Author alexandros.savvaidis@beg.utexas.edu University of Texas at Austin |
Stephen Hicks s.hicks@imperial.ac.uk Imperial College London |
Anthony Lomax alomax@free.fr ALomax Scientific |
Matthew Shirley matthew.shirley@beg.utexas.edu University of Texas at Austin |
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The Importance of Accurate Earthquake Source Information for Understanding the Cause of Induced Seismicity: The Case of Mentone M4.9 Earthquake in West Texas
Category
Mechanisms of Induced Seismicity: Pressure Diffusion, Elastic Stressing and Aseismic Slip