Monitoring of oil-production-induced subsidence and uplift

Better understanding of the nature of anthropogenic seismicity associated with oil and gas production can allow the development of techniques to mitigate the associated seismic hazards. Geodetic measurements can contribute to the understanding of the processes occurring in producing fields. Geodetic methods are used to measure displacements of the Earth's surface and strain in the Earth's crust. Understanding the details of deformations and their effects on geological blocks (faults) requires large data sets. In this presentation we give results from repeated cycles of geodynamical monitoring over a 6 year period in the North Buzachi oilfield in the western-part of Kazakhstan. To measure the motions of the Earth's surface, we considered a variety of geodetic methods, including episodic and continuous GPS observations, precise levelling, InSAR, and gravimetrical measurements. With the combination of quantitative constraints on the geometry and the present-day deformations in the oilfield, we aim to create geomechanical models of processes occurring during oil field production.