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Monitoring Induced Microseismicity (M>-1) With the Local Network at the Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE)

Description: 

The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) is a Department of Energy project to develop technology to help de-risk Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) and eventually make them commercially viable. Part of this technology relates to seismic monitoring for hazard and for mapping geothermal reservoir development. At Utah FORGE a local seismic network serves for near-real-time monitoring. In addition, several temporary seismic experiments were applied including the deployment of nodal geophones and the instrumentation of deep boreholes with strings of geophones and DAS (Distributed Acoustic Sensing). Here, we focus on the local seismic network that has been in operation since November 2016. This network has evolved to the current state that includes: (a) seven surface broadband stations, (b) three surface accelerometers, (c) an ~300m deep borehole instrumented with both a three-component geophone and an accelerometer, and (d) six 30 - 45m deep boreholes instrumented with either collocated broadband and accelerometer sensors or broadband sensors. The horizontal components for the borehole broadband sensors were oriented using teleseismic surface waves. With this network we achieve an Mcomp of ~0.5 for the immediate Utah FORGE study area and have detected events down to M -1.0 within the geothermal reservoir, allowing detailed studies of the injection-induced reservoir response. In addition to meeting the monitoring objectives for the Utah FORGE project, this network provided key information in the analysis of two natural earthquake swarm regions located in proximity to Utah FORGE and has identified a persistent source area (potential swarm zone) characterized by events with magnitudes below the completeness of the Utah Regional Seismic Network.

Session: Network Seismology: Recent Developments, Challenges and Lessons Learned [Poster Session]

Type: Poster

Date: 5/1/2024

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Kristine

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors