Dynamic Triggering of Microseismic Events

Abstract:

Microseismic events are commonly recorded during hydraulic fracturing experiments. In microseismic interpretations, each event is often regarded as independent and uncorrelated to neighboring ones. In reality, both the rock deformation (static stresses) and transient wave motion (dynamic stresses) associated with microseismic events add to the stress field together with the external loading (fluid injection). We believe the resulting static and dynamic stress perturbations will influence both the timing and spatial evolution of the microseismic cloud. We study the dynamic triggering of microseismicity using numerical simulations of a biaxial deformation test by means of a bonded particle method (Potyondy and Cundall, 2004), where crack development can be tracked and analyzed independently. Our methodology is to compare the stress changes due to one specific event with the occurrence of the next few events in the numerical simulations. In addition, we compute the dynamic stress perturbations for recorded large events analytically given their (non-double couple) failure mechanisms. Our results show that cracks following a major event tend to form in zones affected by the dynamic stresses by promoting new failure in areas that are critically stressed. This confirms that dynamic triggering during hydraulic fracturing operations but also larger scale seismicity is likely. It also demonstrates the often complex interplay between the dynamic and static stress changes and their effect on the temporal and spatial evolution of rock deformation at all scales.