Double-difference Tomography for Geothermal Reservoir Characterisation - A Case Study at Paralana, South Australia

We performed a series of tests for passive seismic tomography with data from Paralana, a new Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) located in South Australia. An injection well was drilled at Paralana in 2009 into a sedimentary basin down to a high heat-producing basement at ~4000 m depth. The first main hydraulic stimulation of the well took place in July 2011 in order to create/enhance a geothermal reservoir. Induced seismicity was monitored by a network of 20 stations (from surface to 1800 m depth) and more than 7000 microearthquakes were detected during the five days of injection. The synthetic tests indicate that small velocity heterogeneities into the reservoir can be resolved at Paralana if high-precision relative arrival times are used, such as provided by waveform-cross correlation. Preliminary results indicate a low P-wave velocity anomaly at the base of the well.