Full text loading...
-
Automatic 3D-Seismic Fault Interpretation and Slip Potential Analysis from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Bowland Shale, UK
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, EAGE GeoTech 2021 First EAGE Workshop on Induced Seismicity, Mar 2021, Volume 2021, p.1 - 5
- Previous article
- Table of Contents
- Next article
Abstract
The Bowland Shale in central United Kingdom, has shown to be very susceptible to induce anomalously large seismicity during hydraulic fracturing stimulations of shale-gas wells. In part, due to the presence of pre-existent, critically-stressed, strike-slip faults that were not previously detected in 2D or 3D seismic surveys due to their low (and in some cases even null) vertical displacement, and only visible through the location and fault planes of microseismic events once these faults were reactivated. To better identify fault planes from 3D seismic images, and their reactivation potential due to hydraulic fracturing, a high-resolution fault-detection attribute was first tested in the same 3D seismic survey and at the same depth where the two most recently shale-gas wells were hydraulic-fractured in the Bowland Shale in 2018 and 2019. Their fault slip potential was then estimated by integrating the obtained faults with the formation’s stress and pore pressure conditions, where several critically stressed faults were identified near the previously hydraulic fractured wells and with similar location and orientation than the induced seismicity reported for the same wells.