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Poroelastic stress triggering of the December 2013 Crooked Lake, Alberta, induced seismicity sequence
Author(s) -
Deng Kai,
Liu Yajing,
Harrington Rebecca M.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl070421
Subject(s) - induced seismicity , poromechanics , geology , pore water pressure , hydraulic fracturing , coulomb , seismology , stress (linguistics) , sequence (biology) , geotechnical engineering , physics , porous medium , linguistics , philosophy , porosity , biology , genetics , quantum mechanics , electron
The Crooked Lake area in Central Alberta, Canada, became seismically active in December 2013 with a sequence of earthquakes M w 2.0 and higher. The earthquakes are suspected to be induced by hydraulic fracturing in nearby horizontal wells due to their strong spatiotemporal correlation. To investigate the physical mechanism of the induced seismicity near Crooked Lake, we calculate stress and pore pressure perturbations resulting from high‐rate multistage fluid injection in the framework of linear poroelasticity. The calculated perturbations are used for seismic risk analysis based on the Coulomb failure criterion. Results show that most seismicity is within a positive Coulomb stress change regime, indicating that failure is promoted by injection of fluid. By comparing Coulomb stress results for different parameter settings, we show that elastic response of the solid matrix, instead of fluid diffusion, is more likely the dominant factor for the induced earthquakes shortly after fluid injection.