Modeling of induced seismicity during mineral carbon sequestration

Rapidly developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are a promising way of reducing the climate impact of greenhouse gases. These technologies involve injecting large amounts of CO2-bearing fluids underground, which potentially leads to high pore pressure and the conditions for seismic activity in the proximity of the injection site. Previously, we developed a simple conceptual model to estimate the seismic risk of mineral or mafic CCS operations (Yarushina & Bercovici, GRL vol.40, doi:10.1002/grl.50196, 2013). In this model, the storage reservoir is treated as a porous rock with grains that evolve during carbonation reactions. Seismic triggering occurs when local stresses at grain-grain contacts reach the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. We showed that injection of CO2 into reactive mafic or ultramafic rocks potentially reduces seismic risk since carbonation reactions increase the contact area between the rock grains and reduce the local stresses. Here we further develop this model and consider the effect of fluid injection flux and pressure gradients along grain boundaries on induced seismicity. Grain evolution not only changes the stress support but also alters the matrix permeability, which in turn affects the driving pressure gradients and the associated deviatoric stresses. The resulting coupled porous flow, chemical reactive grain-growth and failure model is an important step in understanding the seismic risks of carbon sequestration.