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Subsurface fluid injection and extraction can reactivate faults and induce earthquakes. In current research, faults are typically described as symmetrical structures and the presence of asymmetric structures is often overlooked. The reality is that numerous asymmetric faults exist within the Earth's crust. The architectural and permeability characteristics of fault zones differ significantly between symmetrical and asymmetrical faults. These differences may have a great influence on fault stability during fluid injection or extraction. In this study, the impact of fault zone structures on fluid-induced slips and seismic activity were investigated through numerical analysis. The findings indicated that symmetrical faults were more likely to induce larger slips and earthquakes during various subsurface fluid operations. For asymmetric faults, larger induced slips occurred when fluid was operated in a hanging wall reservoir than in a footwall reservoir. In symmetrical faults, the opposite was true. When evaluating the stability of a fault in subsurface fluid engineering, the fault structure and fluid pattern and their combined effects must be considered comprehensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal energy has many advantages, such as being renewable, clean, widely distributed, and without time and weather limitations. Hydraulic fracturing is usually needed for the exploitation of HDR geothermal energy. It has many hidden faults in the reservoir/caprock sequences. Injecting fluid into underground formations during hydraulic fracturing often induces fault slip and leads to earthquakes. Therefore, to well understand the induced fault slip and earthquakes is important for the applications and development of HDR geothermal exploitation. In this study, we investigated the hazardous injection area of the induced earthquakes during hydraulic fracturing. The study was based on a hydraulic fracturing test in Qiabuqia geothermal field in China. According to the field, a fault-surrounding rock-fracturing region system was developed to study the influences of fluid injection on the stability of the specific fault. A total of 60 hydraulic fracturing regions and 180 numerical experiments were designed. The results revealed that the hazardous injection regions that threaten the fault's stability were near to the fault and concentrated on the following four areas: (a) above the top of the fault in underlying strata; (b) above the top of the hanging wall of the fault in underlying strata; (c) near to the fault planes in both footwall and hanging wall; (d) at the bottom of the footwall of the fault in underlying strata. The hazardous injection area can be controlled effectively by adjusting the injection pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal energy has become promising resources for relieving the energy crisis and global warming. The exploitation of HDR geothermal energy usually needs an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) with artificial fracture networks by hydraulic fracturing. Fault reactivation and seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing raise a great challenge. In this paper, we investigated the characteristics of fault slip and seismicity by numerical simulation. The study was based on a hydraulic fracturing project in the geothermal field of Yishu fault zone in China. It revealed that fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing can cause the faults that exist beyond the fluid-pressurized region to slip and can even induce large seismic event. It was easier to cause felt earthquakes when hydraulic fracturing was carried out in different layers simultaneously. We also examined the effects of the location, permeability, and area of the fracturing region on fault slip and magnitude of the resulting events. The results of the study can provide some useful references for establishing HDR EGS in Yishu fault zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At underground fluid injection sites with natural faults, understanding how to avoid the subsequent fault reactivation and induced seismicity plays a crucial role in the success of subsurface anthropogenic activities. In this work, with the objective of avoiding risky faults in site selection in the Shengli Oilfield, we investigated the faults that are usually encountered in the target demonstration zone; based on the geophysical observations of fault structures, we designed different fault tectonic scenarios to investigate the different penetration patterns of faults. We used the finite element-based numerical method to assess the influence of the effective lateral and vertical reservoir transmissivity in each fault penetration pattern. Our results indicate that when a permeable fault intersects into the target reservoir, it presents both barrier effect to reservoir transmissivity within the target reservoir and hydraulic connection between reservoirs. The effective lateral reservoir transmissivity is dominated by the barrier effect of the fault, and the effective vertical reservoir transmissivity is dominated by the hydraulic connection between reservoirs. Relatively impermeable faults with less contact with the target aquifer make higher effective lateral reservoir transmissivity and lower effective vertical reservoir transmissivity, which would mitigate the risk of caprock failure and the magnitude of the induced seismicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, a great deal of petroleum geology and engineering projects associated with underground fluid injection and production (FIP) are widely conducted around the world. The FIP engineering may cause complex stress perturbation and trigger seismicity, which have been extensively reported and studied. In this paper, we investigated the fault slippage characteristics influenced by FIP. It reveals that for a fault (normal or reverse) that penetrating through the reservoir into the caprock and underburden, the footwall reservoir is the relatively stable one for fluid injection in a fluid FIP engineering. No matter it is a normal or a reverse fault, injecting fluid into footwall reservoir and producing fluid from the hanging wall reservoir can induce smaller fault slippage. After having determined the better fluid injection-production pattern, we studied the influence of three key factors of fault, i.e., dip, offset and depth, on fault stability. We found that, in our range of study, the influence of single action of fault dip, offset or depth on fault slippage in a FIP engineering was small. However, the influence of the combined effects of the factors may be large. Finally, we studied the effect of different pressure management scenarios on fault responses based on the specific fluid injection-production pattern. The results revealed that appropriate pressure management could effectively reduce fault slippage in a FIP engineering. However, inappropriate pressure management may cause much larger fault slippage. Given these concerns, it is therefore vital that the effect of pressure management scenario to be modeled prior to FIP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injecting fluid into subsurface reservoirs is a hydromechanical coupling process that can induce heaving of the ground surface. The presence of clayey interbeds in the reservoir can have considerable influence on the surface uplift. We used a numerical method to investigate this process. We found that different locations have different impacts on the surface uplift. We applied the orthogonal experimental design using the Taguchi method for extensive parametric analysis and determined the most influential factor. Finally, we analyzed the low-permeable effect of the interbed due to its low permeability, compared to the reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injection or withdrawal of fluid at depth may trigger felt seismicity. At a site with natural faults or artificial fracturing cracks, understanding how to avoid triggering felt earthquakes plays a crucial role in the success of underground anthropogenic activities, such as subsurface energy storage and CO geological sequestration. With the application of a hydromechanical coupling finite element model, we examine the potential of injection-induced pore pressure change and the responding fault slippage along the fault surface in two injection scenarios: multi-layer injection (MLI) and single-layer injection (SLI). The results indicate that fault slippage buildup is mainly located along the portion of the fault intersecting the reservoir. MLI leads to a relatively lower level of induced seismicity compared with SLI. In the fault zone, the external zone and core of the fault exert a connection effect and barrier effect on the hydraulic connectivity, respectively. After 20 years of injection, the pore pressure in the core presents a smaller change than that in the internal and external zones. Furthermore, an uncertainty analysis was performed to evaluate the statistical significance of permeability in the caprock, reservoir, and fault (core, internal zone, and external zone), and only the permeability in the reservoir significantly affects the level of fault slippage based on the fault zone hydromechanics associated with subsurface energy storage and CO geological sequestration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]