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DEAL Wiley
Abstract:
Understanding injection‐induced seismic moment release with operational parameters is crucial for early identification of possible seismic hazards associated with fluid‐injection projects. We conducted laboratory fluid‐injection experiments on permeable sandstone samples containing a critically stressed fault at different fluid pressurization rates. The observed fluid‐induced fault deformation is dominantly aseismic. Fluid‐induced stick‐slip and fault creep reveal that total seismic moment release of acoustic emission (AE) events are related to total injected volume, independent of respective fault slip behavior. Seismic moment release rate of AE scales with measured fault slip velocity. For injection‐induced fault slip in a homogeneous pressurized region, released moment shows a linear scaling with injected volume for stable slip (steady slip and fault creep) while we find a cubic relation for dynamic slip. Our results highlight that monitoring evolution of seismic moment release with injected volume in some cases may assist in discriminating between stable slip and unstable runaway ruptures.
