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Pore Pressure Threshold and Fault Slip Potential for Induced Earthquakes in the Dallas‐Fort Worth Area of North Central Texas
Author(s) -
Hennings P. H.,
Nicot J.P.,
Gao R. S.,
DeShon H. R.,
Lund Snee J.E.,
Morris A. P.,
Brudzinski M. R.,
Horne E. A.,
Breton C.
Publication year - 2021
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 - 10.1029/2021gl093564
Subject(s) - seismology , geology , pore water pressure , slip (aerodynamics) , fault (geology) , structural basin , geotechnical engineering , geomorphology , engineering , aerospace engineering
Earthquakes were induced in the Fort Worth Basin from 2008 through 2020 by increase in pore pressure from injection of oilfield wastewater (SWD). In this region and elsewhere, a missing link in understanding the mechanics of causation has been a lack of comprehensive models of pore pressure evolution (ΔPp) from SWD. We integrate detailed earthquake catalogs, ΔPp, and probabilistic fault slip potential (FSP) and find that faults near large‐scale SWD operations became unstable early, when ΔPp reached ∼0.31 MPa and FSP reached 0.24. Faults farther from SWD became unstable later, when FSP reached 0.17 and at much smaller ΔPp. Earthquake sequences reactivated with mean ΔPp of ∼0.05 MPa. The response of faults shows strong variability, with many remaining stable at higher ΔPp and few that became seismogenic at smaller changes. As ΔPp spread regionally, an ever‐increasing number of faults were impacted and the most sensitive became unstable.