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Title: Active–Source Seismic Tomography at the Brady Geothermal Field, Nevada, with Dense Nodal and Fiber–Optic Seismic Arrays

Abstract

We deployed a dense seismic array to image the shallow structure in the injection area of the Brady Hot Springs geothermal power plant in western Nevada. The array was composed of 238 three-component, 5 Hz nodal instruments, 8700 m of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) fiber-optic cable (FOC) installed horizontally in surface trenches, and 400 m of FOC installed vertically in a borehole. The geophone array had about 60 m instrument spacing in the target zone, whereas DAS channel separations were about 1 m with an averaging (gauge) length of 10 m. The acquisition systems provided 15 days of continuous records, including active-source and ambient noise signals. A large vibroseis truck was operated at 196 locations, exciting a swept-frequency signal from 5 to 80 Hz over 20 s using three vibration modes (vertical, longitudinal, and transverse), with three sweeps per mode at each site. Sweeps were repeated up to four times at each site during four different stages of power plant operation: normal operation, shutdown, high and oscillatory injection and production, and normal operation. After removal of the sweep signal from the raw data, the first P-wave arrivals were automatically picked using a combination of methods. Here, the travel times weremore » then used to invert for the 3D P-wave velocity structure. Models with 100 m horizontal and 20–50 m vertical node spacing were obtained, covering an area 2000 m by 1300 m, with acceptable resolution extending to about 250 m below surface. The travel-time data were fit to a root mean square (rms) misfit of 31 ms, close to our estimated picking uncertainty. Lateral boundaries between high and low velocity zones agree relatively well with the location of local faults from previous studies, and low near-surface velocities are associated with faults and fumarole locations. A sharp increase in velocity from < 1500 to > 2000 m/s at approximately 50 m below the ground surface in many parts of the study area may indicate a shallower water table than expected for the region.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [1];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan (China)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of Oregon, Eugene, OR (United States)
  5. Univ. of Texas, El Paso, TX (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Geothermal Technologies Office; National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1638785
Grant/Contract Number:  
EE0006760; EAR-1261681
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Seismological Research Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 89; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0895-0695
Publisher:
Seismological Society of America
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

Citation Formats

Parker, L. M., Thurber, C. H., Zeng, X., Li, P., Lord, N. E., Fratta, D., Wang, H. F., Robertson, M. C., Thomas, A. M., Karplus, M. S., Nayak, A., and Feigl, K. L. Active–Source Seismic Tomography at the Brady Geothermal Field, Nevada, with Dense Nodal and Fiber–Optic Seismic Arrays. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1785/0220180085.
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Parker, L. M., Thurber, C. H., Zeng, X., Li, P., Lord, N. E., Fratta, D., Wang, H. F., Robertson, M. C., Thomas, A. M., Karplus, M. S., Nayak, A., & Feigl, K. L. Active–Source Seismic Tomography at the Brady Geothermal Field, Nevada, with Dense Nodal and Fiber–Optic Seismic Arrays. United States. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180085
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Parker, L. M., Thurber, C. H., Zeng, X., Li, P., Lord, N. E., Fratta, D., Wang, H. F., Robertson, M. C., Thomas, A. M., Karplus, M. S., Nayak, A., and Feigl, K. L. Wed . "Active–Source Seismic Tomography at the Brady Geothermal Field, Nevada, with Dense Nodal and Fiber–Optic Seismic Arrays". United States. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180085. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1638785.
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@article{osti_1638785,
title = {Active–Source Seismic Tomography at the Brady Geothermal Field, Nevada, with Dense Nodal and Fiber–Optic Seismic Arrays},
author = {Parker, L. M. and Thurber, C. H. and Zeng, X. and Li, P. and Lord, N. E. and Fratta, D. and Wang, H. F. and Robertson, M. C. and Thomas, A. M. and Karplus, M. S. and Nayak, A. and Feigl, K. L.},
abstractNote = {We deployed a dense seismic array to image the shallow structure in the injection area of the Brady Hot Springs geothermal power plant in western Nevada. The array was composed of 238 three-component, 5 Hz nodal instruments, 8700 m of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) fiber-optic cable (FOC) installed horizontally in surface trenches, and 400 m of FOC installed vertically in a borehole. The geophone array had about 60 m instrument spacing in the target zone, whereas DAS channel separations were about 1 m with an averaging (gauge) length of 10 m. The acquisition systems provided 15 days of continuous records, including active-source and ambient noise signals. A large vibroseis truck was operated at 196 locations, exciting a swept-frequency signal from 5 to 80 Hz over 20 s using three vibration modes (vertical, longitudinal, and transverse), with three sweeps per mode at each site. Sweeps were repeated up to four times at each site during four different stages of power plant operation: normal operation, shutdown, high and oscillatory injection and production, and normal operation. After removal of the sweep signal from the raw data, the first P-wave arrivals were automatically picked using a combination of methods. Here, the travel times were then used to invert for the 3D P-wave velocity structure. Models with 100 m horizontal and 20–50 m vertical node spacing were obtained, covering an area 2000 m by 1300 m, with acceptable resolution extending to about 250 m below surface. The travel-time data were fit to a root mean square (rms) misfit of 31 ms, close to our estimated picking uncertainty. Lateral boundaries between high and low velocity zones agree relatively well with the location of local faults from previous studies, and low near-surface velocities are associated with faults and fumarole locations. A sharp increase in velocity from < 1500 to > 2000 m/s at approximately 50 m below the ground surface in many parts of the study area may indicate a shallower water table than expected for the region.},
doi = {10.1785/0220180085},
journal = {Seismological Research Letters},
number = 5,
volume = 89,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Wed Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Journal Article:
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180085
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Cited by: 29 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Map of geothermal fields in the Great Basin, modified from Faulds et al. (2004). Geothermal field belts are the Sevier Desert (SD), Humboldt Structural Zone (HSZ), Black Rock Desert (BRD), Surprise Valley (SV), and Walker Lane Geothermal (WLG). Circles are geothermal systems; white for maximum temperatures belowmore » 160°C and black for maximum temperature above 160°C. Star marks Brady Hot Springs geothermal field. ECSZ, eastern California shear zone.« less
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Works referenced in this record:

Vibroseis deconvolution: a comparison of cross-correlation and frequency-domain sweep deconvolution
journal, November 2001

Field testing of fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for subsurface seismic monitoring
journal, June 2013

  • Daley, Thomas M.; Freifeld, Barry M.; Ajo-Franklin, Jonathan
  • The Leading Edge, Vol. 32, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1190/tle32060699.1

Continuous monitoring of propagation velocity of seismic wave using ACROSS
journal, January 2002

Waveform Retrieval and Phase Identification for Seismic Data from the CASS Experiment
journal, September 2012

The Rock Physics Handbook
book, January 2009

Field trials of distributed acoustic sensing for geophysical monitoring
conference, May 2011

  • Mestayer, J.; Cox, B.; Wills, P.
  • SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts 2011
  • DOI: 10.1190/1.3628095

Geothermal reservoir characterization using distributed temperature sensing at Brady Geothermal Field, Nevada
journal, December 2017

  • Patterson, Jeremy R.; Cardiff, Michael; Coleman, Thomas
  • The Leading Edge, Vol. 36, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1190/tle36121024a1.1

Robust automatic P-phase picking: an on-line implementation in the analysis of broadband seismogram recordings
journal, June 1999

Local earthquake tomography with flexible gridding
journal, August 1999

A fast algorithm for two-point seismic ray tracing
journal, June 1987

  • Um, Junho; Thurber, Clifford
  • Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 77, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1785/BSSA0770030972

Ground motion response to an ML 4.3 earthquake using co-located distributed acoustic sensing and seismometer arrays
journal, March 2018

  • Wang, Herbert F.; Zeng, Xiangfang; Miller, Douglas E.
  • Geophysical Journal International, Vol. 213, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/gji/ggy102

Properties of Noise Cross‐Correlation Functions Obtained from a Distributed Acoustic Sensing Array at Garner Valley, California
journal, January 2017

  • Zeng, Xiangfang; Lancelle, Chelsea; Thurber, Clifford
  • Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 107, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1785/0120160168
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Distributed Acoustic Sensing Using Dark Fiber for Near-Surface Characterization and Broadband Seismic Event Detection
    journal, February 2019

    Distributed Acoustic Sensing Using Dark Fiber for Near-Surface Characterization and Broadband Seismic Event Detection
    journal, February 2019

    3D Imaging of Geothermal Faults from a Vertical DAS Fiber at Brady Hot Spring, NV USA
    journal, April 2019

    • Trainor-Guitton, Whitney; Guitton, Antoine; Jreij, Samir
    • Energies, Vol. 12, Issue 7
    • DOI: 10.3390/en12071401
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      Figures / Tables found in this record:

      Figure 1 (p. 2)figure
      Figure 2 (p. 3)figure
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      Figure 5 (p. 5)figure
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