In November 2013, a series of earthquakes began along a mapped ancient fault system near Azle, Texas. Here we assess whether it is plausible that human activity caused these earthquakes. Analysis of both lake and groundwater variations near Azle shows that no significant stress changes were associated with the shallow water table before or during the earthquake sequence. In contrast, pore-pressure models demonstrate that a combination of brine production and wastewater injection near the fault generated subsurface pressures sufficient to induce earthquakes on near-critically stressed faults. On the basis of modelling results and the absence of historical earthquakes near Azle, brine production combined with wastewater disposal represent the most likely cause of recent seismicity near Azle. For assessing the earthquake cause, our research underscores the necessity of monitoring subsurface wastewater formation pressures and monitoring earthquakes having magnitudes of ∼M2 and greater. Currently, monitoring at these levels is not standard across Texas or the United States.
In Texas, earthquakes have occurred in close association with activities accompanying petroleum production since 1925.Here we develop a five-question test to categorize individual events as "tectonic," "possibly induced," "probably induced," or "almost certainly induced." In Texas, the probably induced and almost certainly induced earthquakes are broadly distributed geographically-in the Fort Worth basin of north Texas, the Haynesville Shale play area of east Texas, along the Gulf Coast in south Texas, and the Permian basin of west Texas. As the technologies applied to manage petroleum fields have evolved, induced earthquakes have been associated with different practices. In fields being driven by primary recovery prior to 1940, earthquakes occurred in fields extracting high volumes of petroleum from shallow strata. Subsequently, as field pressures decreased and secondary recovery technologies became common, earthquakes also occurred in association with waterflooding operations. Since 2008, the rate of earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 3 has increased from about 2 events/yr to 12 events/yr; much of this change is attributable to earthquakes occurring within a few kilometers of wastewater disposal wells injecting at high monthly rates. For three sequences monitored by temporary local seismograph networks, most hypocenters had focal depths at and deeper than the depth of injection and occurred along mapped faults situated within 2 km of injection sites. The record clearly demonstrates that induced earthquakes have been broadly distributed in several different geographic parts of Texas over the last 90 years.Online Material: Earthquake catalogs and a figure of focal mechanisms.
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