Time-series analysis of surface deformation at Brady Hot Springs geothermal field (Nevada) using interferometric synthetic aperture radar
- Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
- Ormat Technologies Inc., Reno, NV (United States)
- Temple Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Environmental Science
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
We analyze interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data acquired between 2004 and 2014, by the ERS-2, Envisat, ALOS and TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X satellite missions to measure and characterize time-dependent deformation at the Brady Hot Springs geothermal field in western Nevada due to extraction of fluids. The long axis of the ~4 km by ~1.5 km elliptical subsiding area coincides with the strike of the dominant normal fault system at Brady. Within this bowl of subsidence, the interference pattern shows several smaller features with length scales of the order of ~1 km. This signature occurs consistently in all of the well-correlated interferometric pairs spanning several months. Results from inverse modeling suggest that the deformation is a result of volumetric contraction in shallow units, no deeper than 600 m, likely associated with damaged regions where fault segments mechanically interact. Such damaged zones are expected to extend downward along steeply dipping fault planes, providing a high permeability conduit to the production wells. Using time series analysis, we test the hypothesis that geothermal production drives the observed deformation. We find a good correlation between the observed deformation rate and the rate of production in the shallow wells. We also explore mechanisms that could potentially cause the observed deformation, including thermal contraction of rock, decline in pore pressure and dissolution of minerals over time.
- Research Organization:
- Temple Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Geothermal Technologies Office
- DOE Contract Number:
- EE0005510
- OSTI ID:
- 1249334
- Journal Information:
- Geothermics, Vol. 61, Issue C; Related Information: This research was supported by grants from the Geothermal Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy:"Development of tools for coupled InSAR and Seismicity monitoring of EGS reservoir development and management" (DE-EE0005510)"PoroTomo: Poroelastic Tomography by Adjoint Inverse Modeling of Data from Seismology, Geodesy, and Hydrology" (DE-EE0006760)Elena C. Baluyut was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant DGE-1256259.We gratefully acknowledge support from the Weeks family to the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Raw Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the ERS, and Envisat satellite missions operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) are copyrighted by ESA and were provided through the WInSAR consortium at the UNAVCO facility.SAR data from the ALOS satellite mission operated by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) were acquired from NASA's Distributed Active Archive Center at the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF).SAR data from the TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellite missions operated by the German Space Agency (DLR) were acquired through Research Project RES1236.; ISSN 0375-6505
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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