Scientists offer possible explanation for how oil and gas activity may have triggered Dallas earthquakes

[Newsman]

In a long-awaited study, researchers have offered a possible explanation for how oil and gas activity may have triggered earthquakes in Dallas and Irving last year.

The disposal of wastewater from oil and gas production and hydraulic fracturing “plausibly” set off the tremors, which shook Dallas, Irving, Highland Park and other cities from April 2014 through January 2016, said Matthew Hornbach, the study’s lead author and professor of geophysics at Southern Methodist University.

While the quakes were too small to cause much damage to buildings, they spread alarm through a metro area unaccustomed to feeling the ground shift.

The quakes contributed to a tenfold increase in North Texas’ earthquake hazard level, prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to warn of stronger quakes that could cause billions of dollars of damage, and moved local emergency managers to begin preparing for worst-case scenarios.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-ne ... quakes.ece

[serguei58]

This fact once again proves the falsity of Mr. Reid's idea of ​​the accumulation of elastic stresses by the earth's crust, which serve as sources of earthquakes. In fact, the source of any earthquake or other seismic phenomenon is a sharp drop in rock pressure, which causes the movement of electrons from orbit to orbit and the release of energy as a result of a change in orbit.

[GuyM]

I'm curious as to how well the modelling from your approach matches up with the observed data when it comes to induced seismicity.
The Oklahoma data would be of particular interest, as that shows a rise and then fall in monitored quakes.

I'm also curious about whether your approach could be used to model the production of the "unconventional" oilfields in the US that employ hydraulic fracturing, and so predict the production decline associated with those fields and the "tight" formations they produce from.

That is to say -

What implications do your ideas have for exploration geophysics / petrophysics and the associated reservoir modelling work?
What do you predict about the future of US tight shale-oil formation as a result?

[serguei58]

In one of my papers for a Russian scientific journal, I referred to the data obtained by Mr. Frolich in Texas when pumping fluid into wells:Frohlich, C, DeShon, H, Stump, B, Hayward, C, Hornbach, M,& Walter, J. A. (2016). Historical Review of Indused Earthquakes in Texas. Seismological Research letters, 2016-05-18. These data indicate that this type of earthquake occurs strictly and only at the time of injection. Hence, these are induced earthquakes. What conclusion can be drawn from this? As soon as at the moment of injection there was a shock, then the injection of fluid into the well should be stopped and another well drilled. If the production area is deserted, then fluid injection can be continued. The swarm of tremors will only contribute to oil and gas production.

Based on the conclusions made in my work, it is possible to determine the diameter of the well and the pressure created by the pump, at which earthquakes will be absent or minimized, both in quantitative terms, there and in the energy level.
I think that the volume of shale oil and gas production will increase in the future.