Earthquake Locations in the Pecos, TX Region of the Delaware Basin
Session: Recent Development in Ultra-Dense Seismic Arrays With Nodes and Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) [Poster]
Type: Poster
Date: 4/30/2020
Time: 08:00 AM
Room: Ballroom
Description:
Since 2009, there has been a dramatic increase in seismicity in the Delaware Basin of west Texas in the Pecos, TX region. Seismicity has increased by over two orders of magnitude since 2009, corresponding with an increase in oil and gas production in the basin. Approximately 920 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 1.5 have been recorded within a 50 km radius of Pecos, TX since the Texas Seismological Network (TexNet) was installed in January of 2017. These include three ML 3+ earthquakes and approximately 200 ML 2.0-2.9 earthquakes. Due to TexNet’s typical 25 km spacing, hypocenters are poorly constrained. Absolute epicentral error is as much as 4 km and absolute depth error as much as 5 km. Accurate hypocenters are critically needed in the Delaware Basin to identify the structures producing these earthquakes and how they are related to unconventional petroleum development and production.
To determine accurate epicenters, focal depths and velocity structure, we designed and deployed a network of ~25 3C Magseis Fairfield Z-land 5-Hz nodes in and around the Pecos area, known as the Pecos Array. The array began recording in November 2018. We initially determine locations for the best-recorded earthquakes from the Pecos Array using a standard location program, HYPOINVERSE, and then use the joint hypocenter-velocity program VELEST to derive a minimum 1-D velocity model for future tomography modeling. Determining the earthquake hypocenters within a well-constrained 1-D velocity model is the first step toward determining what is causing these earthquakes in this region. With robust hypocenters and a 1-D velocity model, we can derive 3-D tomography models and better understand the seismicity patterns and regional structure near Pecos.
Presenting Author: Jenna L. Faith
Authors
Jenna L Faith jlfaith@miners.utep.edu University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States Presenting Author
Corresponding Author
|
Marianne Karplus mkarplus@utep.edu University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States |
Stephen Veitch saveitch@utep.edu University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States |
William Ellsworth wellsworth@stanford.edu Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States |
Diane I Doser doser@utep.edu University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States |
Alexandros Savvaidis alexandros.savvaidis@beg.utexas.edu Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States |
Earthquake Locations in the Pecos, TX Region of the Delaware Basin
Category
Recent Development in Ultra-Dense Seismic Arrays With Nodes and Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS)