Science & Technology:

Induced Seismicity in Geothermal Fields Can Serve as a Model for Oil & Gas Industry (SEG)

The latest issue of The Leading Edge, a publication of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Volume 34, Issue 6, (pp. 602–728) has a special section on Injection-induced seismicity.

In the introduction by Robert Habiger (Geophysical Consultant) and Gregory Beroza (Stanford University), it says that the special section “is intended to offer an overview of induced seismicity, along with some of the studies under way to help understand and manage it.”

They also mention that “the geothermal-power industry and the Geysers field in California, for example, have a long history of dealing with challenges of induced seismicity and aspects of their approach could perhaps serve as a model for oil and gas. The DOE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) created an “induced seismicity: Web site showing the recent seismicity in the Geysers geothermal field.

The Introduction ends with the statement “There is clearly a lot of work yet to be done to understand induced seismicity and to manage the risk that it poses”.

(Thanks to GRC Member Marcelo Lippmann, Staff Scientist (retired) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the submission.)