![]() ![]() In some cases, seismicity is linked with more than one activity. The lower the p-value the higher the association confidence. The graphic indicates how strongly seismicity is linked with hydraulic fracturing, shallow wastewater injection, and deep wastewater injection in different regions. Researchers investigated the linkage between earthquakes and oil and gas production activities in the Delaware Basin of Texas and New Mexico. However, this was higher than previously expected. Hydraulic fracturing – a process that uses highly pressurized fluid to create and enhance fractures in the rock to increase the flow of oil and gas – was linked to only 13% of earthquakes. The 2020 magnitude 5.0 earthquake that occurred in Mentone, Texas, happened in a region where seismicity was strongly associated with deep produced water injection. Forty-three percent of the earthquakes above magnitude 1.5 were linked with injection into shallow sedimentary formations, above the hydraulic fracturing depth 12% were linked with injection into deep sedimentary formations above the basement rock and below the hydraulic fracturing depth. The researchers analyzed about 5,000 earthquakes, selecting the above magnitude 1.5 threshold. The study was published in Seismological Research Letters. “The modeling techniques could help oil and gas producers and regulators identify potential risks and adjust production and disposal activity to decrease them.” “This paper shows that we now know a lot about how oil and gas activities and seismic activity are connected,” Savvaidis said. By using a combination of statistical analysis and physics-based modeling, the study was able to disentangle which activities have a connection to past earthquakes. Companies dispose of produced water by injecting it into geologic formations that are separate from oil and gas reservoirs.Īll of these production activities are known to increase subsurface pore pressure, which is a mechanism for triggering earthquakes, said the study’s co-author, Alexandros Savvaidis, a researcher at the UT Bureau of Economic Geology and the principal investigator of Texas’ state seismic monitoring network and seismicity research TexNet, which is overseen by the bureau. Formation water is found in all subsurface reservoirs and produced with oil and gas. The researchers looked back on data that tracked seismicity and oil and gas production in the region from 2017 to 2020 and found that 68% of earthquakes above magnitude 1.5 were highly associated with one or more of the following oil and gas production activities: hydraulic fracturing or the disposal of produced formation water into either shallow or deep geologic formations. According to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, the majority of them can be linked to oil and gas production. Since 2009, earthquakes have been rapidly rising in the Delaware Basin – a prolific oil-producing region in West Texas and New Mexico. ![]()
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