Seismic Activity in the Permian Basin Area of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico, 1975–79

Keller, G. Randy; Rogers, A.M.; Orr, C. D.

doi:10.1785/gssrl.58.2.63

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The network recorded more than 2000 earthquakes, of which about 1300 were located. There were several different investigations analyzing these data (Rogers and Malkiel, 1979;Keller et al, 1987;Doser et al, 1992); all found that much of this seismicity occurred within several active oil and gas fields, notably the WarWink, Kermit-Keystone, and Apollo-Hendrick Fields. The investigations all concluded the seismicity was probably induced but that more than one mechanism was responsible.…”

Section: Permian Basin 1966 Present: Probably Inducedmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Historical Review of Induced Earthquakes in Texas

Frohlich

DeShon

Stump

et al. 2016

Seismological Research Letters

133

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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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Section: Permian Basin 1966 Present: Probably Inducedmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Historical Review of Induced Earthquakes in Texas

Frohlich

DeShon

Stump

et al. 2016

Seismological Research Letters

133

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“…Among the natural events are the two largest earthquakes in the state (Figure a): the 16 August 1931 Valentine earthquake with moment magnitude M W 6.3 (Doser, ) and the M W 5.7 14 April 1995 Alpine earthquake (Frohlich & Davis, ). However, analysis of data collected from 1976 to 1979 by a 12‐station regional network indicated that many small earthquakes occurring in the Central Basin Platform and Delaware Basin (Figure b) were related to enhanced recovery or petroleum production operations (Doser et al, ; Frohlich et al, ; Keller et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Onset and Cause of Increased Seismic Activity Near Pecos, West Texas, United States, From Observations at the Lajitas TXAR Seismic Array

et al. 2020

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In recent years, numerous small earthquakes have occurred near the town of Pecos in West Texas; however, when this activity began and whether it was caused by increased petroleum industry activity has been uncertain because prior to 2017 there were few permanent seismograph stations in the region. We identify and locate earthquakes using data recorded since 2000 at TXAR, a sensitive 10-station seismic array situated about 240 km south of Pecos. We thus show that in 2007, one earthquake occurred near Pecos, in 2009 several more occurred, and subsequently, activity has increased considerably, with more than 2000 events identified in 2017. A time-of-day and year-by-year analysis identifies geographic areas in West Texas where events are likely to be natural earthquakes and quarry blasts. However, for the Pecos events, annual seismicity rates increase along with annual volumes of petroleum production and fluid waste disposal, suggesting a causal link. Analysis of seismograms collected by the EarthScope Transportable Array indicates that the 2009 earthquakes had focal depths of 4.0-5.2 km below sea level, within or just below strata where petroleum is produced and/or wastewater is injected. The largest earthquake to date had magnitude M L 3.7, but the recent high activity rates suggest that greater magnitudes may be possible. For the years 2000-2017, we provide a catalog of 10,753 epicenters of seismic events recorded at TXAR.

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“…The Delaware Basin is the westernmost (and largest) part of the Permian Basin. Fluid injection associated with hydrocarbon development has long been suspected as triggering mechanisms for earthquakes at a number of sites in the Permian Basin since the 1960s (Rogers and Malkiel, 1979;Keller et al, 1981Keller et al, , 1987. The area also has occasional natural seismicity (Doser et al, 1991(Doser et al, , 1992.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prior oil and gas production can limit the occurrence of injection-induced seismicity: A case study in the Delaware Basin of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, USA

Dvory

Zoback

2021

Geology

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We demonstrate that pore pressure and stress changes resulting from several decades of oil and gas production significantly affect the likelihood of injection-related induced seismicity. We illustrate this process in the Delaware Basin (western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, USA), in which hydraulic fracturing and waste-water injection have been inducing numerous earthquakes in the southernmost part of the basin where there has been no prior oil and gas production from the formations in which the earthquakes are now occurring. In the seismically quiescent part of the basin, we show that pore-pressure and poroelastic-stress changes associated with prior oil and gas production make induced seismicity less likely. The findings of this study have important implications for the feasibility of large-scale carbon storage in depleted oil and gas reservoirs.

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Seismic Activity in the Permian Basin Area of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico, 1975–79

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

A Historical Review of Induced Earthquakes in Texas

A Historical Review of Induced Earthquakes in Texas

Onset and Cause of Increased Seismic Activity Near Pecos, West Texas, United States, From Observations at the Lajitas TXAR Seismic Array

Prior oil and gas production can limit the occurrence of injection-induced seismicity: A case study in the Delaware Basin of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, USA

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