Crustal Stress Coherency at Multiple Scales: Utilization for Assessing Potential Fault Slip in Response to Fluid Injection

Mapping of crustal stress orientations using compressive and tensile wellbore failures has been well established for several decades. Combining wellbore stress observations with stress orientation and relative magnitude information from inversion of earthquake focal plane mechanisms can be used to predict the likelihood of fault slip in response to fluid injection. In this talk, I will review several case studies that demonstrate the coherence of the crustal stress field at multiple scales and illustrate how detailed information about stress orientation and relative magnitude can be used to assess the potential for slip on known faults in response to pore pressure changes arising from fluid injection. At the largest scale, the state of stress and its relation to both natural and induced seismicity throughout the central and eastern U.S. will be considered, and more detailed studies will be discussed involving natural earthquakes occurring in the New Madrid seismic zone, both injection-induced and natural earthquakes in central Oklahoma and apparently induced earthquakes at four sites in Texas.