Pore Pressure Threshold and Fault Slip Potential for Induced Earthquakes in the Dallas‐Fort Worth Area of North Central Texas

Hennings, Peter; Nicot, Jean‐Philippe; Gao, Rong; DeShon, Heather R.; Snee, J. E. Lund; Morris, Alan P.; Brudzinski, M. R.; Horne, Elizabeth; Breton, Caroline L.

doi:10.1029/2021gl093564

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(66 reference statements)

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“…Temporal evolution of Δ P p experienced by each fault (left axis) shown with associated EQ sequences (right axis) and the modeled Δ P p at sequence onset denoted by dashed line for (b) NM1, (c) NM2, (d) CMEZ1, (e) CMEZ2, and (f) CMEZ3. Gray shaded area is Δ P p experienced by seismogenic basement‐rooted faults in the Fort Worth Basin (Hennings, Nicot, et al., 2021). Sequences NM1 and NM2 are shown with earthquakes from both TexNet and New Mexico Tech earthquake catalogs without duplicate events removed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High permeability along critically stressed faults or fracture networks allowing for transmission of fluids or pressure (Townend & Zoback, 2000) to greater distance could also play a role in abundant seismicity in the CMEZ area. This phenomenon was proposed by Gao et al (2021) and Hennings, Nicot, et al (2021) as operative in the Fort Worth Basin allowing systems of critically stressed normal faults to transmit ΔP p up to 40 km from areas of significant injection to faults that became seismogenic. Given that the geomodel reflects the rock matrix, even when the permeability field in the flow model is adjusted globally using injectivity data, fault and fracture permeability conduits could locally play a role in far-field fluid and pressure migration.…”

Section: Pore Pressure Evolution Fault Stability and Seismicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Role of Deep Fluid Injection in Induced Seismicity in the Delaware Basin, West Texas and Southeast New Mexico

Smye,

Ge,

Calle

et al. 2024

Geochem Geophys Geosyst

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Rates of seismicity in the Delaware Basin of Texas and New Mexico increased from 10 earthquakes per year of local magnitude (ML) 3.0 and above in 2017 to more than 185 in 2022, coincident with increasing oil and gas production and wastewater re‐injection into strata shallow or deeper than producing intervals. Events of large magnitude—up to ML 5.4 to‐date—occur on faults extending into formations above the basement that have received more than four billion barrels of injection. Here, we demonstrate the link between injection geology, pore pressure evolution, fault stability, and induced seismicity in this region. We find that the injection targets are largely dolomitized platform carbonates with low (<5 vol.%) matrix porosity and fracture‐enhanced permeability with inherent heterogeneity in flow properties. A comprehensive, three‐dimensional geological model populated with reservoir properties is used for fluid flow modeling, with global calibration supplemented by dynamic injectivity data. Pore pressure changes with deep injection are up to 5 MPa from 1983 to 2023, increasing the native pore pressure state by 10% locally. Modeling results show that earthquakes occurring at distances of up to 30 km from deep injection have experienced small (<0.1 MPa) pore pressure increases, indicating that the faults hosting these earthquakes are highly sensitive to changes in effective stress and have lower frictional stability than the 0.6 generally assumed. These results serve as a critical step in understanding the stress changes that induce earthquakes in one of the most seismically active and geologically complex basins in the US.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pore Pressure Evolution Fault Stability and Seismicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of Deep Fluid Injection in Induced Seismicity in the Delaware Basin, West Texas and Southeast New Mexico

Smye,

Ge,

Calle

et al. 2024

Geochem Geophys Geosyst

Self Cite

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“…Analogous earthquake-triggering in crystalline basement due to produced saltwater injection in the Ellenberger limestone which, like the Arbuckle, sits directly on basement, has been observed in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area of northeast Texas ( 20 ). The same is true in the cases of the Decatur CO 2 injection project in the Illinois Basin ( 21 ) and the Quest CO 2 injection project in Alberta ( 22 ).…”

Section: The Challenges Of Large-scale Geologic Storagementioning

confidence: 99%

Meeting the challenges of large-scale carbon storage and hydrogen production

Zoback

Smit

2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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There is a pressing need to rapidly, and massively, scale up negative carbon strategies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS). At the same time, large-scale CCS can enable ramp-up of large-scale hydrogen production, a key component of decarbonized energy systems. We argue here that the safest, and most practical strategy for dramatically increasing CO 2 storage in the subsurface is to focus on regions where there are multiple partially depleted oil and gas reservoirs. Many of these reservoirs have adequate storage capacity, are geologically and hydrodynamically well understood and are less prone to injection-induced seismicity than saline aquifers. Once a CO 2 storage facility is up and running, it can be used to store CO 2 from multiple sources. Integration of CCS with hydrogen production appears to be an economically viable strategy for dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, particularly in oil- and gas-producing countries where there are numerous depleted reservoirs that are potentially suitable for large-scale carbon storage.

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“…Rock criticality values distribute in a broad range between 0.001 MPa and approximately 3 MPa for the first site and between 0.001 MPa and approximately 1 MPa for the second, with the upper bounds being several orders of magnitude larger than the lower bounds. In the Fort Worth Basin, USA, the critical fluid pressure change to reactivate earthquake sequences was reported to be characterised by a positively skewed distribution ranging between 0 and 1 MPa with a mean of around 0.05 MPa (Hennings et al 2021). This different shape of magnitude distribution of critical values to trigger seismicity may be explained by the seismic event depth considered, and the difference and heterogeneity in fracture attributes and stress conditions at different field sites.…”

Section: Implications Of Fracture Criticality For the Seismotectonic ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Langenbruch et al (2018) forecasted the likelihood of damage inducing earthquakes in both space and time using a hybrid physical-statistical model, which involved the evaluation of pore pressure change by a regional hydrogeologic model, and analysis of spatial variability of the seismogenic state. Hennings et al (2021) integrated the pore pressure change derived from hydrogeological modelling, earthquake catalogues, and probabilistic fault slip potential analysis to investigate relationships between earthquake sequences and the spatiotemporal association with oilfield wastewater disposal activities. In addition, integration of geomechanical analysis and microseismic observations has been used for various evaluation purposes, such as to estimate the fracture pressure to ensure CO 2 storage reservoir integrity (Goertz-Allmann et al 2014), and to map seismically active regional fault-containing corridors (Weir et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic Evaluation of Susceptibility to Fluid Injection-Induced Seismicity Based on Statistics of Fracture Criticality

et al. 2022

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Fault reactivation and associated microseismicity pose a potential threat to industrial processes involving fluid injection into the subsurface. In this research, fracture criticality, defined as the gradient of critical fluid pressure change to trigger seismicity (Δpc/h), is proposed as a novel reservoir depth-independent metric of fault slip susceptibility. Based on statistics of the fracture criticality, a probabilistic evaluation framework for susceptibility to injection-induced seismicity was developed by integrating seismic observations and hydrogeological modelling of fluid injection operations for faulted reservoirs. The proposed seismic susceptibility evaluation method considers the injection-driven fluid pressure increase, the variability of fracture criticality, and regional fracture density. Utilising this methodology, the probabilistic distribution of fracture criticality was obtained to evaluate the potential for injection-induced seismicity in both fault and off-fault zones at the Hellisheiði geothermal site, Iceland. It has been found that the fracture criticality within both fault and off-fault zones shows natural variability (mostly ranging between 0.001 and 2.0 bar/km), and that fault zones tend to be characterised by larger fracture criticality values than the off-faut zones. Fracture criticality values estimated within each zone roughly follow a Gaussian distribution. Fault zones around five geothermal fluid re-injection wells at the site were estimated to have relatively high probability of seismic event occurrence, and these regions experienced high levels of induced seismicity over the microseismic monitoring period. The seismotectonic state estimated for each zone is generally consistent with the forecasted susceptibility to seismicity based on statistics of fracture criticality.

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Pore Pressure Threshold and Fault Slip Potential for Induced Earthquakes in the Dallas‐Fort Worth Area of North Central Texas

Cited by 25 publications

References 24 publications

Role of Deep Fluid Injection in Induced Seismicity in the Delaware Basin, West Texas and Southeast New Mexico

Role of Deep Fluid Injection in Induced Seismicity in the Delaware Basin, West Texas and Southeast New Mexico

Meeting the challenges of large-scale carbon storage and hydrogen production

Probabilistic Evaluation of Susceptibility to Fluid Injection-Induced Seismicity Based on Statistics of Fracture Criticality

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