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Injection-Induced Seismicity: The Role of Poroelastic Stresses

Session: Mechanisms of Induced Seismicity: Pressure Diffusion, Elastic Stressing and Aseismic Slip II

Type: Oral

Date: 4/19/2021

Presentation Time: 05:45 PM Pacific

Description: 

Much of the U.S. midcontinent seismicity in the past decade has been linked to wastewater disposal into deep formations. The current efforts to evaluate and mitigate induced seismic hazard are either using the empirical relation established between seismic response and injection volume or modeling crustal stress fluctuations due to injection which are then linked to seismicity. However, there are debates on the role of poroelastic stresses in evaluating the induced seismic hazard and it remains an open question whether poroelastic stresses could dominate the occurrence of induced events. Answering these questions requires integrating injection, seismic, and hydrogeological data through a physics-based framework accounting for poroelastic coupling and rate-and-state earthquake nucleation. We study injection-induced seismicity in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. The results collectively show that (1) the relative effect of pore pressure and poroelastic stresses depends on subsurface geological structure; (2) poroelastic stresses, as secondary effects, can improve the forecasting of induced earthquake magnitude-time distribution; (3) in some cases, poroelastic stresses could act as the main driver and dominate induced earthquakes; (4) regional tectonics (fault and stress distributions) are important for the consequence of injection operations.

Presenting Author: Guang Zhai

Student Presenter: No

Authors