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SPE-174898-MS

How Big is Too Big? Assessing Seismic Hazard and Hydraulic


Fracture-Induced Seismicity
Sheri Bowman-Young, Ted Urbancic, Gisela Viegas, and Lindsey Meighan, ESG Solutions; Eric VonLunen and
Jason Hendrick, NexenCNOOC Ltd

Copyright 2015, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Houston, Texas, USA, 28 –30 September 2015.

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Abstract
A vast number of the reported cases of increased seismicity of moderate magnitude (Mw ⬎ 0) earthquakes
seem to be tied to some form of fluid injection activitiy, being it wastewater disposal by injection into deep
wells or high pressure fluid injection into oil and gas reservoirs to hydraulically fracture the rock and
improve hydrocarbon recovery. Regulations have been proposed to implement traffic light systems to
dictate the responses that the industry needs to take based on either the magnitudes or observed particle
velocities or accelerations on the surface. In order to relate the seismic hazard potential in seismically
active areas, empirical ground motion prediction equations (EGMPE) are used to relate event parameters
like magnitude and location to site characteristics such as peak ground acceleration (PGA) or peak ground
velocity (PGV) which tend to be how building codes are parametrized. Therefore, local hazard assessment
near hydraulic fractures that generate relatively large magnitude events need to be estimated more
precisely by developing and using local EGMPEs.
Hybrid deployments combining 15Hz downhole and low frequency near-surface geophones can be
used to accurately capture both the localized microseismic events and any large magnitude events
associated with hydraulic fracture monitoring across North American basins – Horn River, Eagle Ford,
Barnett, and Montney for example. In our studies events with M⬎0 are observed for completions in these
formations. While in many cases the magnitude of these events is too small to be felt on the surface, there
are reports of higher magnitude events which have been sensed by workers on site and the local
population.
The exact relationships between magnitudes and shaking are not necessarily one-to-one. Shaking also
varies based on the stress release of the events. As summarized recently by Hough (2014) for other
fluid-induced seismicity, the lower stress releases typical for these sequences results in on-average less
shaking than is observed for equivalent magnitude tectonic events. In order to quantify shaking over a
seismogenic volume, we show how to develop EGMPEs based on the North-American examples. The
EGMPE methodology developed in this study can be extrapolated for similar earthquakes of larger
magnitude and included into future probabilistic hazard and risk analysis for induced seismicity as related
to hydraulic fracture stimulations.
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Introduction
The concern of seismic hazard during hydraulic fracturing and other stimulation and injection practices
in the petroleum industry has over the last few years reached a crossroads. Incidents in Blackpool,
England, Fox Creek, Alberta, the general increase in seismicity in areas like Oklahoma and Kansas, to
name a few, have shined a light on the potential of hydrocarbon field operations to generate seismicity at
levels that are of public concern. In Figure 1, we document magnitude distributions observed with
near-surface, low frequency network recordings for completions in a number of different shale plays from
across North America. In general, to address these concerns, a number of jurisdictions have instituted
various “traffic-light” systems to govern the response of the industry to the potential occurrence of
significant magnitude events. Generally, these protocols dictate that below a certain magnitude threshold,
no response is necessary; once an event is in the “amber” magnitude range, reporting to the regulator may
entail more frequency and/or injections need to be moderated; and finally, once an event in the “red”
magnitude range, the injection in some jurisdictions could be halted. The exact application of these
protocols, due to the nature of this approach, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Further, there has
been poor time correlation between injection periods and the occurrence of induced seismic events with
many occurring outside time periods we would commonly associate with fluid injection.
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Figure 1—Magnitude histograms of the > M0 events detected from surface monitoring of a number of different shale plays in North
America.

Magnitude is the most ubiquitously reported parameter about an earthquake. The Richter Scale is likely
seismology’s biggest contribution to the public consciousness motivated by a desire to quickly describe
how on earthquake ranks with size with respect to others. However, reducing the nuances of an earthquake
to a single magnitude number ignores much of the factors that controls how the earthquake is perceived.
For the example of seismic hazard, the effect of a potential earthquake is not quantified in terms of
magnitudes but in probabilities in exceeding certain ground motion thresholds. The utility of this
quantification is that it immediately can be related to building codes and the designs for different
structures, which are all built to withstand shaking to various thresholds. Determining the magnitude is
only part of the equation, numerous other parameters impact the shaking felt on the surface including (but
not limited to) the depth of the event, the radiation patterns of the seismicity, and the stress release of the
events. By considering such an approach potentially removes the vagueness and ambiguity associated with
the traffic light system often suggested by regulatory agents.
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In a recent study, Hough (2014) examined the United States Geological Survey’s “Did You Feel It?”
reports for 11 cases of suspected injection-induced seismicity. By contrasting those reports with the usual
response from equivalent magnitude tectonic events, she noted that the number of felt reports in the
induced cases was always lower and concluded that the stress drops for induced seismicity events are a
factor of 2-10 less than tectonic events (high stress release caused more shaking).
For hydraulic fracturing the question can be posed as to whether these events are similar to Hough’s
observations or are they a separate category upon themselves. To answer this question, we examined
datasets associated with hydraulic fracture completions in the Horn River Basin in NE British Columbia.
Using this dataset, we looked closely at the stress releases of the largest recorded event, a M2.9, and
related seismicity with Mw ⬎ 0. Using this catalogue we build a relationship between the magnitudes,
depths, and observed ground motion. Finally, we comment on the stress drops that we observe from these
hydraulic fracture completions and how that observed shaking relates to published building codes

Dataset
The Horn River Formation is a natural gas bearing shale in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. It has
3 members: the Muskwa, Otter Park and Evie formations. Natural gas is extracted from the low-
permeability shales using horizontal drilling and fracturing techniques. We analyze data recorded during
the monitoring of multi-well zipper-frac shale completion programs with an integrated seismic monitoring
system, consisting of multi-downhole-arrays of high-frequency three-component geophones deployed
near the reservoir and a near-surface network with lower-frequency three-component sensors. The
hydraulic fracturing treatment over the entire pad generated tens of thousands of ⫺M3 to ⫺M1 events
located within the treatment formation. Figure 2 shows the location in a three-dimensional view of the
~27,000 seismic events, of the horizontal wells and perforation stages, and of the borehole monitoring
arrays. We investigate the failure process of the ~27,000 microseismic (M ⬍ ⫺1) events.
SPE-174898-MS 5

Figure 2—(left) Microseismic events recorded during a multi-well zipper-frac hydraulic fracturing shale completion program in NE
British Columbia, Canada. Events are color coded by magnitudes, treatment wells are shown in grey, observation wells in red, and the
triaxial sensors as triads of grey cylinders. (right) Event locations for the near surface array are shown for the two years monitoring.

Downward growth of seismicity into the underlying Keg River Limestone caused by the reactivation
of pre-existing geological structures was observed during the treatment program. These events generally
have magnitudes up to M1, larger than the magnitudes of events within the reservoir and are characterized
by a near-surface array of 4.5 Hz geophones and force-balance accelerometers which capture the lower
frequencies necessary to accurately characterize the magnitudes properly (Viegas et al., 2012). Over a
period of two years, well over 200 stages were monitored, as related to the completion of 1 ½ pads, a total
of over 800 events were detected from this near-surface array with magnitudes ranging from M0.3 to M2.9
(shown on the right in figure 2). To understand the hazard potential, we evaluate the relationships of the
different stress release parameters from a subset of the lower magnitude data (detected downhole only)
and from the near-surface events (characterized using only these lower-frequency sensors).
For the lower-magnitude seismicity, shown on the left of Figure 2, there is a fairly direct link to the
injection as the events can be seen to grow out of the treatment wells at a steady rate. Contrasting that
behavior to the observations on the right, the seismicity is not growing from an injection region, but is
largely isolated to linear fault and fracture zones. This marked change in behavior, also noted in the lack
of temporal correlations between the injections and the seismicity, suggests a different mechanism for
their generation.
Characterizing Fractures through Source Parameters
Typical analysis of microseismicity associated with hydraulic fracturing focuses on the locations of the
events and their magnitudes to characterize the growth of the stimulated region during the treatment.
However, the energetics of the fracturing processes can reveal themselves through in-depth analyses of
other source parameters, or the frequency response of the microseismicity.
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Seismic events occurring in the same host rock and stress conditions tend to behave self-similarly, that
is, tend to reproduce themselves in different time and space scales, maintaining a similar failure
mechanism and frictional behavior. Non-similar behavior is often observed for events with highly tensile
failures in fractured zones, and is related to stress interaction with pre-existing fractures under confine-
ment and inherent fracturing complexity (Urbancic et al., 1992). The injection of fluids within the rock
mass can alter the self-similar behavior of seismic events as it alters the local stress field and the strain
localization mechanism and reduces frictional resistance in the fracture plane, thus generating a different
seismic signature. Differences in the frictional behaviour of bare rock surfaces and powdered rock
surfaces have been measured in recent laboratory experiments (e. g., Proctor et al., 2014) with stress
dependent and higher dynamic frictional resistance values being found for powdered surfaces when
slipping under normal stresses below 60 MPa (equivalent to depths shallower than 5 km), similar to stress
conditions found in shale reservoirs. This suggests that the emplacement of proppant (sand or ceramic
spheres) within the reservoir, a common practice in hydraulic fracturing programs, can also generate
non-similar characteristic source behaviour by modifying the slip-weakening process due to changes in
the stiffness of the system and in strain localization mechanisms and due to powder lubrication effects.
In general, a typical spectral profile of an event’s displacement spectrum shows that there is a
low-frequency spectral plateau (which is proportional to seismic moment) up to a corner frequency at
which point the spectrum decays with the inverse square of frequency. Seismic attenuation needs to be
corrected to reveal these profiles; otherwise the dampening of the high frequencies may obscure these
features. The relationships between moment and corner frequency, for example, characterizes the failure
process in terms of the static stress drop (stress release on the rupture surface). These relationships are not
always simple and straightforward and dependencies on other variables usually assumed constant on a
first order approximation exist. For example, an event with a complex rupture history has a larger stress
drop than an event with a simple rupture with similar moment and rupture duration. Relationships between
moment and radiated energy are useful to understand the partition of energy between several competing
processes. For example, events with low apparent stress (radiated energy over seismic moment times
rigidity) indicate that these events are not very efficient in radiating seismic energy and that a larger
portion of the stored elastic energy released during the fracture was spent on frictional and fracturing
processes than for events with higher apparent stresses. These and other such relationships are examined
to constrain the energetics of the fracturing process, and thereby help to characterize the roles of fluid in
the failure processes, the friction on the fracture surfaces, and other processes to begin to answer some of
the more fundamental questions on exactly how the stimulations affect the reservoir. Source parameters
of all microseismic events, such as seismic moment, source radius and radiated energy, were calculated
using well established spectral methods and relationships following Urbancic et al. (1996). By incorpo-
rating information from both the P- and S-waves, changes in mechanism are inherently taken into account.
From these, stress drop ⌬␴ is estimated following Eshelby (1957) measuring the change in the stress level
on the fault surface caused by the rupture. These fractures have low average ⌬␴ (~10 kPa), with some ⌬␴
variability throughout the reservoir. Low stress drops can be obtained when fractures are unclamped either
by lowering the normal effective stress on the fracture (stress transfer mechanism) or by increasing the
pore pressure, which is consistent with the overpressure injection of fluids.
To summarize the stress and scaling relationships we analyze data from one treatment stage in the Otter
Park formation (Figure 3). This stage generated a number of events that were detected on the near-surface
network as well as on the downhole network so we can analyze those data in detail. As noted above,
although the treatment is in the Otter Park formation, the events locate well below, likely along a fault
zone that is optimally oriented to slip in the stress regime perturbed from the hydraulic completion. For
these larger events, we observe an increase in the stress drop to about 0.1 MPa.
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Figure 3—Stress drop vs moment magnitude relationships for events occurring during stimulation of the Otter Park formation. The
events are colored by source radius and the symbol denoted whether they were detected on the borehole sensors only, or if they had
signal on the near-surface network.

Seismic Hazard Evaluation


Seismic hazard is quantified in terms of probabilities of exceeding thresholds of ground motion (in either
velocity or acceleration) in different period bands. With such thresholds established, it makes it possible
to relate the associated probabilities with the engineered specifications that buildings and other structures
are designed to withstand. In order to understand the amount of peak velocities and accelerations across
a study area, it can suffice to use point measures of acceleration and velocity and use an empirical ground
motion prediction equation (EGMPE) to interpolate over the Earth’s surface (or even, in the example of
mining induced seismicity, over mine workings). A catalogue of seismicity is then necessary to establish
the various parameters of the EGMPE. This EGMPE methodology is more directly relevant to under-
standing the effects of seismicity on hazard and risk than many of the current or proposed “traffic-light
systems” which rely on establishing magnitude thresholds: different magnitude events can result in
different levels of shaking due to the stress drops observed, depths of the events, and numerous other
effects (radiation patterns, geometrical spreading variations, local soil conditions, to name a few).
Most EGMPE studies have historically been geared towards understanding tectonic seismicity where
event depths are generally much deeper and much higher stress release than induced seismicity. To
illustrate the effect of these parameters on the observed shaking, we model the response of an idealized
medium to an Mw3 event in Figure 4. In comparing the response in acceleration to the variations in
distance and stress drop, the increases in stress drop from the proposed baseline stress drop for induced
events to tectonic events (from 0.1 MPa to 1 MPa) is far larger than the variations with depth, indicating
that shaking is more related to stress drop variations than the shallowness of events. This sensitivity of
stress drop to shaking is what led Hough (2014) to conclude that the relatively modest amount of USGS
“Did you feel it” reports for given moment magnitudes for induced seismicity was indicative of low
overall stress drops.
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Figure 4 —(left) Acceleration vs frequency for different scenarios with variable distance from a Mw3 event with a stress drop of 0.1 MPa.
(right). Same as on the left, but looking at events with different stress drops controlling for distance (2.5 miles).

As an example in constructing an EGMPE for an induced seismicity sequence, we consider the


distribution of events in figure 5. Over the course of 2 years of monitoring, there were 817 events with
over 12000 records from a range of hypocentral distances from 2.6 to 10 km (1.5 to 6.2 miles) and a range
of magnitude from 0.3 to 2.9 (see figure 5).

Figure 5—Summary of the near surface data where the hypocentral distances vary from 2.6 to 10 km (1.5 to 6.2 miles) and the
magnitudes vary from 0.3 to 2.9.

Figure 6 —The fits of the EGMPE (red curve) to data at Mwⴝ2.0 (left) and at hypocentral distances of 3 km (1.9 miles) (right).
SPE-174898-MS 9

We fit a relatively standard functional form of the EGMPE described by the equation

where y is ground motion (peak accelerations or velocities), R is hypocentral distance, M is magnitude


and the constants a, b, c, and d are to be determined from fitting the data (Figure 7).

Figure 7—(left) Coeffiecients used for the Horn River example.

The results of this fit are shown in Figure 6. There is generally significant scatter for these relationships,
due to variations in event radiation patterns and to variations in the overburden layers between stations.
However, once these fits are obtained, the probability of encountering a particular ground motion through
the study area may be assessed. To return to the question of how these events relate to seismic hazard, we
plot the acceleration spectrum of the largest record in the dataset against the building design curves for
two different soil conditions. For this catalogue, the shaking is fairly negligible relative to the Type I and
Type II response curves (accounting for differences in soil types) as indicated in Figure 8.

Figure 8 —Acceleration response of the closest station for the largest events in the catalogue (Mw2.9) relative to the UBC 97 building
design spectra for different soil types.

Discussion
We show that hydraulic fracture induced seismicity follows relatively modest stress drop relationships for
the data we examined. Although there is an apparent trend to increasing stress drops with magnitude, the
stress drops we observe for larger magnitude seismicity are at about 0.1 MPa, which is generally more
than an order of magnitude lower than stress drops observed worldwide for tectonic seismicity (Allmann
and Shearer, 2009). The lower values of stress release reduce the levels of shaking experienced (and
therefore seismic hazard) for these induced events. These observations are also in alignment with those
obtained by Hough for various other types of injection programs.
To put it in the context of a more common scale, Figure 9 compares the range of events recorded from
hydraulic fracture treatments to the Mercalli earthquake intensity scale. Based on this scale, the largest
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event recorded (Mw 2.9) would not cause any damage to structures but may be large enough to be felt
by a few people. In addition, relating the maximum peak ground acceleration recorded from the Horn
River stimulation of 0.017g to the USGS earthquake probability map from 2014 in Figure 9, the shaking
from this large event constitutes very low hazard.

Figure 9 —(left) Mercalli earthquake intensity scale, note that the largest magnitude recorded from a hydraulic fracture stimulation is
very low on the intensity scale. On the right is the USGS earthquake hazard map for the continental USA. The highest peak ground
acceleration recorded for the Horn River example is 0.017 g which falls very low on the hazard map (outlined in red on the legend in
the upper right)

Conclusion
In the context of traffic light systems for induced seismicity, we argue that the magnitude thresholds are
not responding to actual seismic hazard and suggest that protocols such as traffic light systems should be
specified in terms of shaking. In order to quantify the ground motion over a surface, empirical ground
motion prediction equations offer a way to interpolate observed ground motions given magnitudes and
distance to the event. The EGMPE shown here is specific to the Horn River area, but similar formulations
can be established on an area by area basis simply by changing the coefficients (a,b,c,d).

Nomenclature
y ⫺ ground motion (peak acceleration or velocity)
R – hypocentral distance
M – magnitude
a – constant
b – constant
SPE-174898-MS 11

c – constant
d – constant

References
Allmann and Shearer, 2009, Global variations of stress drop for moderate to large earthquakes, J.
Geophys. Res., 114, B01310, doi:10.1029/2008JB005821.
Eshelby, J. (1957). The determination of the elastic field of an ellipsoidal inclusion and related
problems. Phil. Trans. A, 241, 376 –396.
Hough, 2014, Shaking from injection-induced earthquakes in the Central and Eastern United States,
Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 104, pp. 2619 –2626 doi: 10.1785/0120140099
Proctor, B., Mitchell, T., Hirth, G., Goldsby, D., Zorzi, F., Platt, J. & Di Toro, G. (2014). Dynamic
weakening of serpentinite gouges and bare surfaces at seismic slip rates. J. of Geophys. Res.,
119(11), 8107–8131.
Urbancic, T., Feignier, B. & Young, R. P. (1992). Influence of source region properties on scaling
relations for M ⬍ 0 events, Pure and Applied Geophysics, 139, 721–739.
Urbancic, T., Trifu, C., Mercer, R., Feustel, A. & Alexander, J. (1996). Automatic time-domain
calculation of source parameters for the analysis of induced seismicity. Bull. Seism. Soc. Am.,
86(5), 1627–1633.

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