Correlation between Induced Seismic Events and Hydraulic Fracturing activities in California

Abstract:

Induced seismicity observed in Oklahoma and Ohio have raised environmental concern to an alarming level and thus any plausible correlation between subsurface injection and production activities have become an significant area of study. As per US Seismic Hazard map, California lies in highly sensitive zone, which makes understanding of stimulation induced seismic events critically important. The copious number of seismic events due to presence of numerous faults in California benefits understanding seismicity of the region but makes it difficult to distinguish induced seismic events from naturally occurring seismic events. Since regional models are considered more effective in understanding the seismicity of the region, this study aims in understanding impact of hydraulic fracturing activities in various oilfields in California. The focus of the study is to identify sensitive zones in California which might have observed seismic activities induced due to hydraulic fracturing. This has been done using the criteria of spatial and temporal co-relation between fracturing activities and seismic events for oilfields with significant number of fracturing activities. The seismic and well data used for this study is acquired from public sources and have been integrated in an efficient manner using the GIS tool and iterative querying. The two step methodology implemented for this work involves segregating the induced seismic events from natural events based on the depth of the event and seismic history of the region and then spatially and temporally studying it with regards to hydraulic fracturing in vicinity of the seismic event.