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research article

Fault roughness controls injection-induced seismicity

Wang, Lei
•
Kwiatek, Grzegorz
•
Renard, Francois
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January 16, 2024
Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America (PNAS)

Surface roughness ubiquitously prevails in natural faults across various length scales. Despite extensive studies highlighting the important role of fault geometry in the dynamics of tectonic earthquakes, whether and how fault roughness affects fluid-induced seismicity remains elusive. Here, we investigate the effects of fault geometry and stress heterogeneity on fluid-induced fault slip and associated seismicity characteristics using laboratory experiments and numerical modeling. We perform fluid injection experiments on quartz-rich sandstone samples containing either a smooth or a rough fault. We find that geometrical roughness slows down injection-induced fault slip and reduces macroscopic slip velocities and fault slip-weakening rates. Stress heterogeneity and roughness control hypocenter distribution, frequency-magnitude characteristics, and source mechanisms of injection-induced acoustic emissions (AEs) (analogous to natural seismicity). In contrast to smooth faults where injection-induced AEs are uniformly distributed, slip on rough faults produces spatially localized AEs with pronounced non-double-couple source mechanisms. We demonstrate that these clustered AEs occur around highly stressed asperities where induced local slip rates are higher, accompanied by lower Gutenberg-Richter b-values. Our findings suggest that real-time monitoring of induced microseismicity during fluid injection may allow identifying progressive localization of seismic activity and improve forecasting of runaway events

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1073/pnas.2310039121
Web of Science ID

WOS:001167389500004

Author(s)
Wang, Lei
Kwiatek, Grzegorz
Renard, Francois
Guerin-Marthe, Simon  
Rybacki, Erik
Bohnhoff, Marco
Naumann, Michael
Dresen, Georg
Date Issued

2024-01-16

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

Published in
Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America (PNAS)
Volume

121

Issue

3

Article Number

e2310039121

Subjects

Laboratory Earthquakes

•

Fluid-Induced Seismicity

•

Fault Roughness

•

Stress Heterogeneity

•

Aseismic Slip

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LEMR  
Available on Infoscience
April 3, 2024
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/206811
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