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WEBINAR: Bureau of Economic Geology at University of Texas, Austin - October 23, 2020
Title: Seismicity Induced by the Development of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources
David W. Eaton, Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary
Abstract
Unconventional oil and gas development is sometimes accompanied by unintended earthquakes, known as induced seismicity. Among the largest such induced events have been the 2016 5.8 MW Pawnee earthquake in Oklahoma and the 2018 5.2 MW earthquake in the Sichuan Basin, China. These moderate earthquakes were triggered by distinct industrial processes - saltwater disposal (Pawnee) and hydraulic fracturing (Sichuan Basin). Notably, as recently as 2015 it was common to find assertions in the scientific literature that the risk of triggering a damaging earthquake by hydraulic fracturing could be treated as negligible. That viewpoint has now changed. This presentation will give an overview of the scientific framework for understanding this type of induced seismicity, with a particular focus on hydraulic-fracturing induced earthquakes in the western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Topics will include proposed triggering mechanisms, geologically susceptible conditions, identification of operational controls, mitigation efforts, and science-informed regulatory management.