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Probability of Statistically Unexpected Earthquakes in Different Basins in Texas

Description: 

The state of Texas has experienced earthquake activity due to fluid injection. An analysis of well-resolved clusters of seismicity from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Delaware basin, Eagle Ford basin, Haynesville region, Midland basin and the Panhandle was undertaken to determine if there are differences in the statistical attributes of seismicity. A merged, magnitude-corrected catalog including historical seismicity, published catalogs and the public TexNet catalog until December 2022 was used to identify the clusters. The exceedance probability, which is the probability of the largest earthquake in the sequence based on the previous earthquakes, was calculated for each cluster. Statistically significant differences between basins were found. The Midland basin was found to be the most likely to experience larger than statistically expected seismicity, followed by the Delaware, Barnett and Eagle Ford plays. An analysis of the temporal progression of the seismicity in each cluster further shows that the clusters with the lowest exceedance probability have the most episodic time series. This suggests that faults on which strain can accumulate, rather than faults where strain is released through continuous seismicity, are more likely to generate a large earthquake.

Session: Advances in Characterizing Seismic Hazard and Forecasting Risk in Hydrocarbon Systems

Type: Oral

Date: 4/18/2023

Presentation Time: 05:15 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Nadine Igonin

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors