Early detection of stress changes and failure using acoustic measurements

Abstract

Activities underground, such as gas extraction or fluid injection, can disturb the natural stresses present and can cause human-induced earthquakes along pre-existing faults. Even though they are related to engineering, these earthquakes are currently unpredictable. Monitoring and understanding how these earthquakes occur are essential for a safe use of the subsurface and to progress with mitigation measures and earthquake forecasting.
Current monitoring relies on post-failure seismic recordings, emphasizing the need for advancements in monitoring and forecasting techniques. Detecting stress changes before seismicity (pre-failure) occurs allows for the timely implementation of mitigation measures. Active seismic monitoring methods have the potential to detect stress changes early and as such precursory information that can improve the forecasting methods and models. However, there is still much to discover regarding the relationship between precursors and the underlying physics. In general, the common fault mechanisms during the seismic cycle are well known. Initial stress build-up is followed by first slip instabilities where the local stress exceeds the fault strength, leading up to a seismic event, during which stress on the fault is released. However, robust and reliable predicting of fault failure and the resulting earthquake has proven to be challenging even for reactivating experimental faults in a controlled laboratory setting....