Analysis of induced seismicity for stress field determination and pore pressure mapping

Abstract

The focal mechanisms of some one hundred microseismic events induced by various water injections have been determined. Within the same depth interval, numerous stress measurements have been conducted with the HTPF method. When inverted simultaneously, the HTPF data and the focal plane solutions help determine the complete stress field in a fairly large volume of rock (about 15×106 m3). These results demonstrate that hydraulically conductive fault zones are associated with local stress heterogeneities. Some of these stress heterogeneities correspond to local stress concentrations with principal stress magnitudes much larger than those of the regional stress field. They preclude the determination of the regional stress field from the sole inversion of focal mechanisms. In addition to determining the regional stress field, the integrated inversion of focal mechanisms and HTPF data help identify the fault plane for each for each of the focal mechanisms. These slip motions have been demonstrated to be consistent with Terzaghi's effective stress principle and a Coulomb friction law with a friction coefficient ranging from 0.65 to 0.9. This has been used for mapping the pore pressure in the rock mass. This mapping shows that induced seismicity does not outline zones of high flow rate but only zones of high pore pressure. For one fault zone where no significant flow has been observed, the local pore pressure has been found to be larger than the regional minimum principal stress but no hydraulic fracturing has been detected there.