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Potential poroelastic triggering of the 2020 M 5.0 Mentone earthquake in the Delaware Basin, Texas, by shallow injection wells

Xinyu Tan and Semechah K. Y. Lui
Potential poroelastic triggering of the 2020 M 5.0 Mentone earthquake in the Delaware Basin, Texas, by shallow injection wells
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (December 2023) 114 (2): 882-894

Abstract

The Delaware basin in Texas, one of the largest oil and gas production sites in the United States, has been impacted by widespread seismicity in recent years. The M 5.0 earthquake that occurred in March 2020 near the town of Mentone is one of the largest induced earthquakes recorded in this region. Characterizing the source parameters and triggering mechanism of this major event is imperative to assess and mitigate future hazard risk. A former study showed that this event may be attributed to the deep injection nearby. Interestingly, the earthquake is in proximity to shallow injection wells with much larger total injection volume. In this study, we investigate the role of these shallow injection wells in the triggering of the M 5.0 event despite their farther distance from the mainshock. We perform source-parameter inversion and earthquake relocation to determine the precise orientation of the south-facing normal-fault plane where the mainshock occurred, followed by fully coupled poroelastic stress modeling of the change of Coulomb failure stress (Delta CFS) on the fitted fault plane caused by shallow injection in the region. Results show that shallow wells caused up to 20 kPa of Delta CFS near the mainshock location, dominated by positive poroelastic stress change. Such perturbation surpasses the general triggering threshold of faults that are well aligned with the local stress field and suggests the nonnegligible role of these shallow wells in the triggering of the mainshock. We also discuss the complex effect of poroelastic stress perturbation in the subsurface and highlight the importance of detailed geomechanical evaluation of the reservoir when developing relevant operational and safety policies.


ISSN: 0037-1106
EISSN: 1943-3573
Serial Title: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
Serial Volume: 114
Serial Issue: 2
Title: Potential poroelastic triggering of the 2020 M 5.0 Mentone earthquake in the Delaware Basin, Texas, by shallow injection wells
Affiliation: University of Toronto Mississauga, Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Mississauga, ON, Canada
Pages: 882-894
Published: 20231212
Text Language: English
Publisher: Seismological Society of America, Berkeley, CA, United States
References: 32
Accession Number: 2024-002950
Categories: Seismology
Document Type: Serial
Bibliographic Level: Analytic
Illustration Description: illus. incl. 3 tables, geol. sketch map
N31°40'00" - N32°00'00", W103°49'60" - W103°12'00"
Country of Publication: United States
Secondary Affiliation: GeoRef, Copyright 2024, American Geosciences Institute. Abstract, Copyright, Seismological Society of America. Reference includes data from GeoScienceWorld, Alexandria, VA, United States
Update Code: 202402
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