Contemporary tectonic stress pattern of the Taranaki Basin, New Zealand

Abstract

The present‐day stress state is a key parameter in numerous geoscientific research fields including geodynamics, seismic hazard assessment, and geomechanics of georeservoirs. The Taranaki Basin of New Zealand is located on the Australian Plate and forms the western boundary of tectonic deformation due to Pacific Plate subduction along the Hikurangi margin. This paper presents the first comprehensive wellbore‐derived basin‐scale in situ stress analysis in New Zealand. We analyze borehole image and oriented caliper data from 129 petroleum wells in the Taranaki Basin to interpret the shape of boreholes and determine the orientation of maximum horizontal stress (SHmax). We combine these data (151 SHmax data records) with 40 stress data records derived from individual earthquake focal mechanism solutions, 6 from stress inversions of focal mechanisms, and 1 data record using the average of several focal mechanism solutions. The resulting data set has 198 data records for the Taranaki Basin and suggests a regional SHmax orientation of N068°E (±22°), which is in agreement with NW‐SE extension suggested by geological data. Furthermore, this ENE‐WSW average SHmax orientation is subparallel to the subduction trench and strike of the subducting slab (N50°E) beneath the central western North Island. Hence, we suggest that the slab geometry and the associated forces due to slab rollback are the key control of crustal stress in the Taranaki Basin. In addition, we find stress perturbations with depth in the vicinity of faults in some of the studied wells, which highlight the impact of local stress sources on the present‐day stress rotation.

The World Stress Map database release 2016: Crustal stress pattern across scales

“…This significant increase of data records in the WSM database release 2016 could be achieved due to the integration of the Chinese Crustal Stress Database (Hu et al, 2017;Xie et al, 2007), the new Australian stress map database (Rajabi et al, 2017b) and comprehensive individual regional and national studies on the crustal stress field in Argentina (Guzmán and Cristallini, 2009;Guzmán et al, 2007), Canada (Konstantinovskaya et al, 2012;, Great Britain (Kingdon et al, 2016;Williams et al, 2015), Germany (Reiter et al, 2016), Iceland (Ziegler et al, 2016b), Italy (Montone and Mariucci, 2016;Pierdominici and Heidbach, 2012), New Zealand (Rajabi et al, 2016b;Townend et al, 2012), USA (Alt II and Zoback, 2017;Hurd and Zoback, 2012;Lund Snee and Zoback, 2016), South Africa (Marco Andreoli and Andrew Logue pers. comm.…”

Numerical Modelling of Salt-Related Stress Decoupling in Sedimentary Basins–Motivated by Observational Data from the North German Basin

“…Lateral variations in the orientation of the maximum horizontal stress (S Hmax ) are a common observation on the scale of sedimentary basins (hundreds to thousands of km; e.g., [1][2][3][4]) as well as of individual hydrocarbon or geothermal fields (1 km to tens of km; e.g., [5][6][7][8][9][10]). In contrast, documented examples of stress orientations varying vertically, e.g., along a borehole trajectory, are less common, e.g., [1,[11][12][13][14][15]].…”

Characterising the contemporary stress orientations near an active continental rifting zone: A case study from the Moatize Basin, central Mozambique

“…ATV logs create an image of the wellbore wall based on acoustic contrast, and they are widely used in petroleum and to a lesser extent in the mining industry for the interpretation of subsurface structures (Burgin et al, 2018; Mukherjee et al, 2021; Rajabi et al, 2018; Ranjbar‐Karami et al, 2019; Salmachi et al, 2016; Wiley, 1980; Zemanek et al, 1969, 1970). ATVs are an invaluable tool for determination of horizontal stress orientations using the interpretation of BOs and DIFs, which are considered as well‐established methods to determine horizontal stress orientations (Ragg et al, 1999; Rajabi et al, 2016; Schindler et al, 1998).…”

“…As given in Table 1, supplementary data and Figure 5 The WSM project considers the A-C quality data as reliable S Hmax data records. Hence, D-quality data are always questionable as it might show the localised stress perturbation instead of the regional stress pattern (Heidbach et al, 2010;Rajabi, Ziegler, et al, 2016). Some basin-wide stress analyses in different basins from across the world have shown that the inclusion of D-quality data in the calculation of basin-wide S Hmax orientation does not affect the mean S Hmax orientation and, hence, D-quality data also represent the regional S Hmax orientation (Rajabi, Ziegler, et al, 2016;Tingay et al, 2010;Ziegler et al, 2016).…”