Managing hydraulic fracturing induced earthquake nuisance and damage risks
Abstract
Risks from induced earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing are a growing concern with a need for effective management. In a hypothetical location, we apply a risk-informed strategy for choosing red-light thresholds, the threshold requiring regulatory intervention. We utilize probabilistic maximum magnitudes, geological formation depth, site amplification compilations, ground motion relationships, probabilistic felt/damaging thresholds, and population datasets to simulate the impacts of damaging or nuisance level ground shaking. The impacts of induced earthquakes are spatially heterogeneous, with greater consequences in the northeast of the play and relatively little in the southwest - with much of this heterogeneity being dominantly driven by concentrations of population density. Nuisance impacts tend to have a longer range than damage impacts, creating spatial heterogeneities of differing wavelengths. Further, we suggest that spatially varying red-light thresholds normalized on these impacts is fairer and safer than single value applied over a broad area. Our results show that these normalized red-light thresholds vary between 2.0-4.5 ML, in this example. Sensitivity tests indicate that the forecast maximum magnitude and ground motion uncertainty are the most influential parameters. Overall, our study provides a guideline for traffic protocols designed in a risk-informed manner that retains the implementational simplicity of magnitude-based thresholds.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMS013.0006S
- Keywords:
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- 1822 Geomechanics;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 7212 Earthquake ground motions and engineering seismology;
- SEISMOLOGY;
- 7223 Earthquake interaction;
- forecasting;
- and prediction;
- SEISMOLOGY;
- 8010 Fractures and faults;
- STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY