EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring

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The U.S. Department of Energy's Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) Collab project aims to improve our understanding of hydraulic stimulations in crystalline rock for enhanced geothermal energy production through execution of intensely monitored meso-scale experiments. The first experiment is being performed at the 4850 ft level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), approximately 1.5 km below the surface at Lead, South Dakota.

Here we report on microseismic monitoring of repeated stimulation experiments and subsequent flow tests between two boreholes in the Poorman Formation. Stimulations were performed at several locations in the designated injection borehole at flow rates from 0.1 to 5 L/min over temporal durations from minutes to hours. Microseismic monitoring was performed using a dense 3D sensor array including two cemented hydrophone strings with 12 sensors at 1.75 m spacing accompanied by 18 3-C accelerometers, deployed in 6 monitoring boreholes, completely surrounding the stimulation region. Continuous records were obtained over a two-month period using a novel dual recording system consisting of a conventional 96 channel exploration seismograph and a high-performance 64 channel digitizer sampling sensors at 4 and 100 kHz respectively.

Using a standard STA/LTA triggering algorithm, we detected thousands of microseismic events with recorded energy in a frequency range generally above 3 kHz and up to 40 kHz. The locations of these events are consistent with creation of a hydraulic fracture and additional reactivation of pre-existing structures. Using manual pick refinement and double-difference relocation we are able to track the fracture growth to high precision. We estimate the times and locations of the fracture intersecting a monitoring and the production borehole using microseismic events. They are in excellent agreement with independent measurements using distributed temperature sensing, in-situ strain observations and measurements of conductivity changes.

This submission includes a microearthquake catalog, raw event files, a subset of the continuous microseismic monitoring data collected during stimulations and flow test activity on 05/22/2018, 05/23/2018, 05/24/2018, 05/25/2018, 06/25/2018, 07/19/2018, 07/20/2018, 12/7/2018, 12/20/2018, and 12/21/2018 (in binary format), and a binary file interpreter to read the continuous microseismic monitoring data. A Stanford Geothermal Workshop paper is also included to describe microseismic monitoring activities at SURF during these periods.

Citation Formats

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (2019). EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring [data set]. Retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/10.15121/1557417.
Export Citation to RIS
Schoenball, Martin, Ajo-Franklin, Jonathan, Robertson, Michelle, Wood, Todd, Blankenship, Doug, Cook, Paul, Dobson, Patrick, Guglielmi, Yves, Fu, Pengcheng, Kneafsey, Timothy, Knox, Hunter, Petrov, Petr, Schwering, Paul, Rempleton, Dennise, Ulrich, Craig, Li, Jiaxuan, Huang, Lianjie, Chi, Benxin, Hopp, Chet, and EGS Collab Team, The. EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring. United States: N.p., 29 Jul, 2019. Web. doi: 10.15121/1557417.
Schoenball, Martin, Ajo-Franklin, Jonathan, Robertson, Michelle, Wood, Todd, Blankenship, Doug, Cook, Paul, Dobson, Patrick, Guglielmi, Yves, Fu, Pengcheng, Kneafsey, Timothy, Knox, Hunter, Petrov, Petr, Schwering, Paul, Rempleton, Dennise, Ulrich, Craig, Li, Jiaxuan, Huang, Lianjie, Chi, Benxin, Hopp, Chet, & EGS Collab Team, The. EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring. United States. https://dx.doi.org/10.15121/1557417
Schoenball, Martin, Ajo-Franklin, Jonathan, Robertson, Michelle, Wood, Todd, Blankenship, Doug, Cook, Paul, Dobson, Patrick, Guglielmi, Yves, Fu, Pengcheng, Kneafsey, Timothy, Knox, Hunter, Petrov, Petr, Schwering, Paul, Rempleton, Dennise, Ulrich, Craig, Li, Jiaxuan, Huang, Lianjie, Chi, Benxin, Hopp, Chet, and EGS Collab Team, The. 2019. "EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring". United States. https://dx.doi.org/10.15121/1557417. https://gdr.openei.org/submissions/1166.
@div{oedi_1166, title = {EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring}, author = {Schoenball, Martin, Ajo-Franklin, Jonathan, Robertson, Michelle, Wood, Todd, Blankenship, Doug, Cook, Paul, Dobson, Patrick, Guglielmi, Yves, Fu, Pengcheng, Kneafsey, Timothy, Knox, Hunter, Petrov, Petr, Schwering, Paul, Rempleton, Dennise, Ulrich, Craig, Li, Jiaxuan, Huang, Lianjie, Chi, Benxin, Hopp, Chet, and EGS Collab Team, The.}, abstractNote = {The U.S. Department of Energy's Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) Collab project aims to improve our understanding of hydraulic stimulations in crystalline rock for enhanced geothermal energy production through execution of intensely monitored meso-scale experiments. The first experiment is being performed at the 4850 ft level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), approximately 1.5 km below the surface at Lead, South Dakota.

Here we report on microseismic monitoring of repeated stimulation experiments and subsequent flow tests between two boreholes in the Poorman Formation. Stimulations were performed at several locations in the designated injection borehole at flow rates from 0.1 to 5 L/min over temporal durations from minutes to hours. Microseismic monitoring was performed using a dense 3D sensor array including two cemented hydrophone strings with 12 sensors at 1.75 m spacing accompanied by 18 3-C accelerometers, deployed in 6 monitoring boreholes, completely surrounding the stimulation region. Continuous records were obtained over a two-month period using a novel dual recording system consisting of a conventional 96 channel exploration seismograph and a high-performance 64 channel digitizer sampling sensors at 4 and 100 kHz respectively.

Using a standard STA/LTA triggering algorithm, we detected thousands of microseismic events with recorded energy in a frequency range generally above 3 kHz and up to 40 kHz. The locations of these events are consistent with creation of a hydraulic fracture and additional reactivation of pre-existing structures. Using manual pick refinement and double-difference relocation we are able to track the fracture growth to high precision. We estimate the times and locations of the fracture intersecting a monitoring and the production borehole using microseismic events. They are in excellent agreement with independent measurements using distributed temperature sensing, in-situ strain observations and measurements of conductivity changes.

This submission includes a microearthquake catalog, raw event files, a subset of the continuous microseismic monitoring data collected during stimulations and flow test activity on 05/22/2018, 05/23/2018, 05/24/2018, 05/25/2018, 06/25/2018, 07/19/2018, 07/20/2018, 12/7/2018, 12/20/2018, and 12/21/2018 (in binary format), and a binary file interpreter to read the continuous microseismic monitoring data. A Stanford Geothermal Workshop paper is also included to describe microseismic monitoring activities at SURF during these periods.}, doi = {10.15121/1557417}, url = {https://gdr.openei.org/submissions/1166}, journal = {}, number = , volume = , place = {United States}, year = {2019}, month = {07}}
https://dx.doi.org/10.15121/1557417

Details

Data from Jul 29, 2019

Last updated Jul 12, 2021

Submitted Jul 29, 2019

Organization

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Contact

Martin Schoenball

Authors

Martin Schoenball

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Jonathan Ajo-Franklin

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Michelle Robertson

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Todd Wood

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Doug Blankenship

Sandia National Laboratories

Paul Cook

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Patrick Dobson

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Yves Guglielmi

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Pengcheng Fu

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Timothy Kneafsey

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Hunter Knox

Sandia National Laboratories

Petr Petrov

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Paul Schwering

Sandia National Laboratories

Dennise Rempleton

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Craig Ulrich

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Jiaxuan Li

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Lianjie Huang

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Benxin Chi

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Chet Hopp

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The EGS Collab Team

The EGS Collab Team

DOE Project Details

Project Name EGS Collab

Project Lead Lauren Boyd

Project Number EE0032708

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