TY - JOUR
T1 - Hydraulic properties of injection formations constrained by surface deformation
AU - Shirzaei, Manoochehr
AU - Manga, Michael
AU - Zhai, Guang
N1 - Funding Information:
Grant DE-SC0019307 from the Department of Energy supports Shirzaei, Manga and Zhai's contributions. We thank Miaki Ishii and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions. The WabInSAR source code used for multitemporal InSAR analysis and all generated interferograms are provided at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19-eda58jGUCumMhZ8HgmMqUP8pG3qAFd?usp=sharing . ALOS data are obtained through Alaska Satellite Facilities at https://vertex.daac.asf.alaska.edu/ . The injection data provided by the Railroad Commission of Texas at http://wwwgisp.rrc.texas.gov/GISViewer2/ . The FORTRAN code implementing Wang and Kümpel (2003) approach is available at ftp://ftp.gfz-potsdam.de/pub/home/turk/wang/update_poel2012-code+input.rar The GPS data are provided by Nevada Geodetic Lab ( http://geodesy.unr.edu/ ). The atmospheric correction model for InSAR is available at http://geodesy.unr.edu/ .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s)
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - Wastewater injection over the past decade has increased seismicity in the central USA, in some cases accompanied by detectable surface uplift. Here, we use this uplift to constrain subsurface properties and pore pressure evolution. We apply an advanced multitemporal interferometric algorithm to 35 synthetic aperture radar images acquired by ALOS satellite over four years before the 2012 earthquake sequence in east Texas, where large volumes of wastewater are disposed at depths of ∼800 m and ∼1800 m. To solve for the hydraulic diffusivity of the injection layers, we jointly inverted the injected volume and uplift data, considering a poroelastic layered half space. We find diffusivity values of 0.3±0.1 m 2 /s and 0.7±0.15 m 2 /s for shallow and deep injection layers, respectively, which combined with seismically-derived bulk moduli yields permeability values of 5.5±2.6×10 −14 m 2 and 1.9±0.25×10 −13 m 2 for these layers, consistent with permeability range reported for Rodessa formation and well test values. Hydraulic conductivity determines the evolution of pore pressure and thus the origin and location of induced seismicity. This study highlights the value of geodetic observations to constrain key hydrogeological properties of injection layers and to monitor the evolution of the subsurface pressure change.
AB - Wastewater injection over the past decade has increased seismicity in the central USA, in some cases accompanied by detectable surface uplift. Here, we use this uplift to constrain subsurface properties and pore pressure evolution. We apply an advanced multitemporal interferometric algorithm to 35 synthetic aperture radar images acquired by ALOS satellite over four years before the 2012 earthquake sequence in east Texas, where large volumes of wastewater are disposed at depths of ∼800 m and ∼1800 m. To solve for the hydraulic diffusivity of the injection layers, we jointly inverted the injected volume and uplift data, considering a poroelastic layered half space. We find diffusivity values of 0.3±0.1 m 2 /s and 0.7±0.15 m 2 /s for shallow and deep injection layers, respectively, which combined with seismically-derived bulk moduli yields permeability values of 5.5±2.6×10 −14 m 2 and 1.9±0.25×10 −13 m 2 for these layers, consistent with permeability range reported for Rodessa formation and well test values. Hydraulic conductivity determines the evolution of pore pressure and thus the origin and location of induced seismicity. This study highlights the value of geodetic observations to constrain key hydrogeological properties of injection layers and to monitor the evolution of the subsurface pressure change.
KW - InSAR time series
KW - estimating hydraulic diffusivity
KW - injection induced seismicity
KW - poroelastic model inversion
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U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2019.03.025
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2019.03.025
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85063404235
SN - 0012-821X
VL - 515
SP - 125
EP - 134
JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
ER -