Miles Wilson miles.wilson@durham.ac.uk
Academic Visitor
Fracking: How far from faults?
Wilson, M.P.; Worrall, F.; Davies, R.J.; Almond, S.
Authors
F. Worrall
R.J. Davies
S. Almond
Abstract
Induced earthquakes and shallow groundwater contamination are two environmental concerns associated with the interaction between hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations and geological faults. To reduce the risks of fault reactivation and faults acting as fluid conduits to groundwater resources, fluid injection needs to be carried out at sufficient distances away from faults. Westwood et al. (Geomechanics and geophysics for geo-energy and geo-resources, pp 1–13, 2017) suggest a maximum horizontal respect distance of 433 m to faults using numerical modelling, but its usefulness is limited by the model parameters. An alternative approach is to use microseismic data to infer the extent of fracture propagation and stress changes. Using published microseismic data from 109 fracking operations and analysis of variance, we find that the empirical risk of detecting microseismicity in shale beyond a horizontal distance of 433 m is 32% and beyond 895 m is 1%. The extent of fracture propagation and stress changes is likely a result of operational parameters, borehole orientation, local geological factors, and the regional stress state. We suggest a horizontal respect distance of 895 m between horizontal boreholes orientated perpendicular to the maximum horizontal stress direction and faults optimally orientated for failure under the regional stress state.
Citation
Wilson, M., Worrall, F., Davies, R., & Almond, S. (2018). Fracking: How far from faults?. Geomechanics and Geophysics for Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources, 4(2), 193-199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40948-018-0081-y
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jan 16, 2018 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 28, 2018 |
Publication Date | Jun 1, 2018 |
Deposit Date | Jan 30, 2018 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 1, 2018 |
Journal | Geomechanics and Geophysics for Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources |
Print ISSN | 2363-8419 |
Electronic ISSN | 2363-8427 |
Publisher | Springer |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 4 |
Issue | 2 |
Pages | 193-199 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1007/s40948-018-0081-y |
Files
Published Journal Article (Advance online version)
(902 Kb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Copyright Statement
Advance online version © The Author(s) 2018.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Published Journal Article (Final published version)
(902 Kb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Copyright Statement
Final published version
You might also like
A dynamic baseline for dissolved methane in English groundwater
(2019)
Journal Article
Identifying groundwater compartmentalisation for hydraulic fracturing risk assessments
(2018)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search