Coupled Geomechanical and Fluid Flow Modeling for Injection Induced Seismicity Prediction
Azra N. Tutuncu* and Binh T. Bui, Petroleum Engineering Department and Unconventional Natural Gas and
Oil Institute (UNGI), Colorado School of Mines
Summary
While creating the a lift for local economies and
technological advancements, shale gas development also has
raised significant concern on surface and groundwater
contamination, air pollution, and more recently induced
seismicity and geo-hazard risks. In this study, the stress
alteration along a fault is estimated using coupled
geomechanics and fluid flow modeling. Examples from gas
shale and shale oil reservoir hydraulic fracturing and waste
disposal operations are provided toward a better
understanding and predictive methodology for induced
seismicity. The role of various factors on induced seismicity
due to fluid injection is discussed. It is shown that
microseismic monitoring along with coupled geomechanics
and fluid flow models and statistical analysis of the
microseismic data can provide a good lead on prediction of
fault reactivation and induced seismicity.
Introduction
In the United States, the states with large petroleum reserves
and significant unconventional development activities are
considered to be the areas with minor seismicity and very
little potential earthquakes. However, recent sizable
earthquakes (2 - 5.3 Richter) in these low seismicity areas in
the states of Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Ohio have
raised further concerns and associated interest in the role of
fluid disposal as well as the hydraulic fracturing and
production on induced seismicity.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently reported more
than 300 earthquakes magnitude M > 3 Richter in the period
between 2010 and 2012 compared to an average rate of 21
events per year in the period of 1967–2000. Most events are
associated with waste disposal or water injection for
enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. Magnitude of these small
earthquakes tends to increase as the total injected fluid
volumes. Injection pressures and the rates have been studied
among the key influencing factors of these tremors.
Microseismic events induced from the hydraulic fracturing
operations typically vary in magnitude from –4.0 to –1.0.
Induced seismicity from the wastewater injection, as stated
in National Research Council report (2012), has occurred in
less than 1% of the injection wells. Induced seismicity with
magnitude M > 1 Richter scale from hydraulic fracturing
operations is also very rare while there is more recorded
evidence of induced seismicity activities with higher energy
release from enhanced geothermal system operations. Public
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perception on induced seismicity still affects the oil and gas
operations and regulation. Right before the release of the
National Academy of Science (NAS) induced-seismicity
study (June 2012), a documented case of injection induced
seismicity was reported in Youngstown, Ohio (M 4.0), in
late 2011. More recently, state investigation of five small
tremors in March 2014 in the Youngstown area at the
Appalachian foothills, Ohio, found that the injection of sand
and water during fracturing in the Utica Shale might have
increased stress on small and unknown faults nearby. The
state placed a moratorium on drilling activity near the
epicenter of where the small earthquakes occurred, while
allowing five existing wells in the same area to continue
production. Although earlier studies had linked earthquakes
in the same region to deep-injection wells for disposal of
fracturing wastewater, these small tremors marked the first
time in the U.S. that have been tied directly to fracturing.
This imposed a change in the permitting conditions requiring
all new drilling sites within 3 miles of a known fault or
seismic activity of M ≥ 2.0 Richter to install sensitive
seismic-monitoring equipment to get a drilling permit.
Internationally, 2011 small tremors recorded in the U.K.
have also introduced a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.
Earthquakes result from the slippage along faults that
releases tectonic stresses growing large enough to exceed a
fault’s breaking strength. The slip along a fault can be due to
pore pressure alteration as a result of fluid injection or
production. As pore pressure increase the Mohr’s circle
shifts toward the failure envelope resulting in earlier failure
of the fault. The friction angle and cohesion strength of the
fault material are also functions of the stress as well as the
compatibility of the native and injected fluids due to the
rock-fluid interactions (Tutuncu, 2008).
The magnitude of the stress alteration causing the fault
slippage is a function of how close the fault is to its critical
stress. The properties of the formation in which fault is
present is also critical to initiate the movement. Earthquake
magnitude is a measure of the amount of energy released,
while earthquake intensity is a measure of the level of
ground shaking at a specific location. The intensity of an
earthquake depends on factors such as distance from the
earthquake source and local geologic conditions, as well as
magnitude, that can be estimated from seismic moment, Mo:
2
M  log M o  10 .7 (1)
3
The seismic moment is calculated using the fault shear
modulus, G, fault slip area, As, and fault slip length, Ls, as,
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 Coupled Geomechanics and Fluid Flow Modeling
M o  GAs Ls (2)
Induced seismicity with M > 1 Richter scale from hydraulic
fracturing operations is also quite rare. Yet, induced
seismicity affects the oil and gas regulations and operations
as well as carbon capture and storage processes.
The high injection rates involved in the waste disposal are
still an active research area. The effort is on preventing any
associated induced seismicity, geohazards and
fundamentally understanding the physical mechanisms. The
fluid injection is used in waste disposal, enhanced
geothermal systems, coal bed methane production, and CO2
sequestration. The effect of CO2 injection and long-term
storage is also not well understood and there are some key
factors that impact the host rock and cap-rock in similar
manner where in waste disposal. In these injection activities,
if the injection site is close to faults or large fractures, fluid
is forced along the fault relieving the stress acting on the
fault or fracture, altering stress state, and often triggering the
recorded induced seismic events.
There are approximately 150,000 permanent disposal wells
in the U.S. and about 40,000 of these wells are closely
associated with the disposal operations related to oil and gas
activities (Underground Injection Control type II wells). Yet,
only several cases of induced seismic events are recorded.
Development of the domestic and international
unconventional resources has triggered various geological,
geophysical and engineering researches to investigate the
mechanisms of induced seismicity for preventing geo-
hazard and continuing sustainable unconventional resource
production. In this research study, we cover early results of
an investigation on the potential occurrence of induced
seismicity in Eagle Ford formation. The coupled numerical
modeling for prediction of associated induced seismicity is
introduced tying the prior studies of stress alteration due to
fluid injection.
The microseismic events are typically considered as shear
failures that occur around the opening of a tensile hydraulic
fracture. Epicenter and origin of individual events are
estimated using a network of geophones either in
observation wells or at the surface to determine of the locus
of seismic events. Depending on the extent of the fault slide
or rupture size of the formation, the level of seismicity
typically increases. Even formation creep can be detected
using passive seismic techniques.
The Rocky mountain arsenal was a chemical weapons
manufacturing center located in the Denver metropolitan
area and had contained a deep injection well. It was drilled
to a depth of 3671 m for the disposal of contaminated liquid
wastes. The well was cased and sealed to a depth of 3650 m,
with the remaining 21 m left as an open hole for the injection
of liquids. For testing purposes, the well was injected with
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approximately 2150 m³ of city water prior to injecting any
waste. The injected fluids had very little potential for
reaching the surface or usable groundwater supply since the
injection point had 3630 m of rock above it and was sealed
at the opening. Less than a year after injection started, two
earthquakes with magnitude of 5.3 and 5.2 Richter occurred
(in 1967). The Army discontinued use of the well because of
the triggered earthquakes in the area. The earthquake activity
and injection schedule plotted together (Evans, 1966) is
evident that the injection cause fault slippage and rupture
resulted significant number of earthquakes. The well
remained unused for nearly 20 years. In 1985 the Army
permanently sealed the disposal well in stages and is
currently opened as a public park.
The historical summary of the seismic events in Western
Colorado by Tutuncu (2008) and induced seismic events in
the US published by Colorado Geological Survey (2011) and
National Research Council (2013) emphasize the increasing
number of induced seismicity associated particularly with
the disposal operations. The review of the location of the
Type II injection wells and occurred seismic events recorded
by the USGS suggests that near the vicinity of the fault
locations, the induced seismicity is caused by the injection
wells. The high injection rates and volume in the hydraulic
fracturing in deep shale formations also cause microseismic
events. However, their magnitudes are much lower in
Richter scale (-4 to -1) as confirmed by the microseismic
monitoring of the hydraulic fracturing.
Another relatively well studied induced seismicity region is
in western Colorado where since 1991, injection of brine into
the Leadville limestone at 4300 to 4800 m. depth along the
southwest margin of the Paradox Valley Unit (PVU),
Colorado by the US Bureau of Reclamation. The seismicity
within the Wray-Mesa fault system triggered earthquakes
with magnitude up 4.2 Richter scale. Once the injection
protocol was modified, the magnitude of induced seismicity
events significantly reduced. The maximum allowable
surface injection pressure was designed to prevent injected
brine from breaching a confining layer of salt for preventing
contamination of the groundwater. Therefore, unlike other
injection wells where injection pressure is kept below the
formation pressure, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency has provided a permission for PVU Well #1 to be
implemented with higher injection pressure. After the
injection rate decreased by one-third in mid-2000, both the
surface and downhole injection pressures dropped
approximately 800 psi and then slowly recovered. In January
2002, the injecting fluid composition was changed from a
70% brine and 30% fresh water mix to 100% brine result in
an increase in the downhole pressure of about 300 psi. By
mid-2003, the downhole pressure had reached the same
value before the mid-2000 decrease in injection flow rate
(about 11,800 psi). The surface injection pressure on the
other hand remained under 5000 psi until mid-2010 same as
before 2000 pressure (Figure 1).
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 Coupled Geomechanics and Fluid Flow Modeling

using techniques including Gutenberg-Richter “b” factor

indicate that the earthquakes are not the result of the tectonic
reactivation of the faults (Figure 2 and 3). Yet, wastewater
injection wells nearby are potentially associated with these
tremors.

Mathematical Modeling

To calculate the stress acting along the fault due to the effect
of fluid injection, a coupled geomechanics and fluid flow
model were implemented simultaneously solving the fluid
flow and geomechanics equations for fluid pressure,
displacement, and temperature. The continuity equation for
phase i using Darcy’s Law as,
¶
Ñ · éë ri kli ( Ñpi - g iÑD)ùû + ri qi = éë ri (1- e v )f Si ùû (3)
Figure 1: Greater than 0.5 magnitude earthquakes occurred since ¶t
injection started at PVU Well #1 as a function of date and distance The conservation of momentum and energy equations are
from the injection well. The radius of the circle represents the event written in equations (4) and (5), respectively.
magnitude (Block et al., 2012). 
  2u
    F  s 2 (4)
Once a “quiet” state, Texas has experienced a number of t
¶é c ù
nc n

å( h ) å
earthquakes in the north near Barnett shale operations and in (5)
-Ñ · T,i ri vi f + Ñ · ( kT ÑT ) = êf ( ui ri si ) + (1- f ) us rs ú
the south near Eagle Ford formation with magnitudes varing ¶t ê i=1 úû
i=1 ë
from 2.0 to 4.8 Richter. The disposal injection rates indicates
where D is formation depth; 𝐹⃗ is external force vector; G is
that in the absence of faults nearby injection sites, no
seismicity occurred. Higher injection rates created higher shear modulus; kT is heat conductivity; 𝑘 is relative
probability of slippage at the faults and observed permeability tensor; Ls is fault length; q̂ is specific flow rate;
earthquakes in Mc Mullen, Atascosa, Karnes, and Bees Si is phase saturation; u is the displacement
counties in Texas as discussed in detail in Tutuncu (2014). vector;isporosity; t is time, T is temperature; isstrain;
Several well nearby where the epicenter of a 4.8 Richter visvolumetric strain; fsare density of fluid and rock;
scale earthquake occurred in October 2011 in Eagle Ford in is the mobility of fluid; and s is stress tensor.
McMullen County, Texas has been investigated in this study.
An investigation of the seismic records from several wells

Figure 2. The hydraulic fracturing pressure and microseismic dataset collected at an Eagle Ford well multistage hydraulic fracturing operation.
The microseismic events stop when injection is ceased.

Results and Discussion
Three governing equations above are solved implicitly for fluid
phase pressure, temperature, and displacement. From
displacement and the elastic properties of the formation, the
strain and stress magnitudes have been calculated. Hence, the
stress acting on the fault can be roughly estimated as a function
of fault orientation and injection time. The simulation was run
for a hydraulic fracturing operation near a fault. The fault was
placed at a distance from the horizontal injection well. Moving
the fault in y direction away from the injection site, the stress
alteration near the fault is estimated. Large changes in stress

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 Coupled Geomechanics and Fluid Flow Modeling

state observed when fault was placed close enough to the
injection site (60 m.). It is evident that the alteration of stress
nearby a fault potentially causes induced seismicity events
during high rate fluid injection operations. When the fault is
moved to 180 m. and 1 km. away from the injection site, the
effect was significantly reduced.
caused by fluid injection acting on the fault is small when fault
is away from the injection wells. Lubrication of the fault by the
injection fluid may reduce friction coefficient and is another
key parameter to evaluate for failure. Theoretically, the
distance from the wellbore to the fault does not affect the
magnitude of the earthquakes. However, rock-fluid
interactions due to fluid invasion into fault may change shear
modulus and failure stress of the fault and affecting the seismic
moment. The slip movement is constrained by the reservoir
stress condition, stress acting along the fault, fault frictional
stress and the petrophysical properties of the formation. An
example used for our simulation for calculated shear stress and
the dimension of the fault with the earthquake magnitudes
shown in Figures 4 and 5, respectively.
12000

Average Shear Stress along the Fault [psi]

30 [m] away
11000 150 [m] away
Figure 3. b factors calculated for the microseismic events from 14
10000
stage hydraulic fracturing operations shown in Figure 2.
9000
The injection of the fluid into formation changes the pressure 8000
in the formation (Figure 4). The fault face movement depends
7000
on the critical stress acting in the slipping direction. A move
occurs when the stress acting along the fault is greater than its 6000
critical friction stress. The higher the critical stress, the larger 5000
the seismic moment. Faults with very high critical stress may
4000
not necessarily fail due to high rate injection if the stress acting 0 100 200 300 400
along the fault does not reach the critical stress. The failure
Injection Time [days]
stress is determined by the normal stress acting on the fault face
and the friction coefficient. During injection, both the stress Figure 5. Average shear stress calculated along the fault as a function
of injection time.
and the friction coefficient change. The normal stress change
3.5
can be calculated from the coupled simulation introduced here.
Earthquake magnitude [Richter]

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5 formation thickness = 30 [m]
formation thickness = 90 [m]
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Fault Length [m]

Figure 6. Earthquake magnitude varies with fault length.

Summary

This research presented here outlines various factors affecting

Figure 4. Pressure distribution in the example reservoir used here after
14.5 days of injection.
The distance to the fault determines how early the fault will slip
as a result of the fluid injection operation. Faults near injectors
slip earlier than the faults away from the injection well. The
stress acting along the fault will vary as a function of the
injection rate, injection time, distance to the fault, and fault
orientation. Simulation results indicate that the stress alteration
induced seismicity due to fluid injection. Integration of coupled
modeling and geological, geomechanical, and seismic data is
emphasized. It is critical to have the locations of faults in the
area before any well placement, fracturing, production or waste
disposal for preventing potential geo-hazard risk through
drilling, hydraulic fracturing and production operations. The
coupled simulator presented here is helpful to identify at what
distance to a fault in a given formation the well needs to be
drilled to minimize any potential induced seismicity incidents.

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 EDITED REFERENCES
Note: This reference list is a copyedited version of the reference list submitted by the author. Reference lists for the 2015
SEG Technical Program Expanded Abstracts have been copyedited so that references provided with the online metadata for
each paper will achieve a high degree of linking to cited sources that appear on the Web.

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Bureau of Reclamation Technical Service Center Technical Memorandum 86-68330-2012-27.
Colorado Geological Survey, 2014, Earthquakes triggered by humans in Colorado — A background
paper: Colorado Geological
Survey, http://geosurvey.state.co.us/hazards/Earthquakes/Documents/EarthquakesTriggered.pdf.
Evans, D. M., 1966, The Denver area earthquakes and the Rocky Mountain arsenal disposal well: The
Mountain Geologist, 3, 23–26.
Frohlich, C., 2012, A survey of earthquakes and injection well locations in the Barnett Shale, Texas: The
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