Effects of the distribution and evolution of the coefficient of friction along a fault on the assessment of the seismic activity associated with a hypothetical industrial-scale geologic CO₂ sequestration operation

Journal Article · Tue Oct 24 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2017.09.018· OSTI ID:1506281

Jeanne, Pierre ^[1]; Rutqvist, Jonny ^[1]; Foxall, William ^[1]; Rinaldi, Antonio Pio ^[2]; Wainwright, Haruko M. ^[1]; Zhou, Quanlin ^[1]; Birkholzer, Jens ^[1]; Layland-Bachmann, Corinne ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Energy Geoscience Division
2. Federal Inst. of Technology, Zurich (Switzerland). Swiss Seismological Service

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in geological formations is considered as a promising option that could limit CO₂ emissions from human activities into the atmosphere. However, there is a risk that pressure buildup inside the storage formation can induce slip along preexisting faults and create seismic event felt by the population. To prevent this to happen a geomechanical fault stability analysis should be performed, considering uncertainties of input parameters. In this paper, we investigate how the distribution of the coefficient of friction and the applied frictional law could influence the assessment of fault stability and the characteristics of potential injection-induced seismic events. Our modelling study is based on a hypothetical industrial-scale carbon sequestration project located in the Southern San Joaquin Basin in California, USA, where the stability on a major (25 km long) fault that bounds the sequestration site is assessed during 50 years of CO₂ injection. We conduct nine simulations in which the distributions of the coefficients of static and dynamic friction are changed to simulate a hardening and softening phase before and during rupture. Here, our main findings are: (i) variations in friction along the fault have an important effect on the predicted seismic activity, with maximum magnitude ranging from 1.88 to 5.88 and number of seismic events ranging from 338 to 3272; (ii) the extreme values of the coefficient of friction (lowest and highest) present along the rupture area control how much stress is accumulated before rupture; and (iii) an argillaceous caprock can prevent the development of large magnitude seismic events but favor the occurrence of a large number of smaller events.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE); Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; PZENP2_160555
• OSTI ID: 1506281
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1496436
• Journal Information: International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 66, Issue C; ISSN 1750-5836
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES