Energy Technologies: How They Work and Their Induced Seismicity Potential - Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies - page 85

Secondary recovery and
waste and wastewater
disposal

1,000.

FIGURE 3.16 Graph showing maximum induced seismic event magnitude versus volume of fluid injected
into or extracted from single wells or fields that are documented to have had a seismic event directly at-
tributed to or strongly suggested to be caused by one of the energy technologies. These are global data.
Events and associated volumes are identified by technology: red triangles denote geothermal energy with
most of the data points representing fields (note that the net fluid volume, injected and withdrawn, at
The Geysers is actually close to or below zero; see also Figure 3.17); blue triangles denote injection for
secondary recovery or waste injection (such as at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal), almost all of which rep-
resent single wells; yellow triangles denote fluid extraction (oil or gas withdrawal; note that no data were
available on the amount of fluid that may also have been injected in these fields to facilitate withdrawal);
and green triangles denote hydraulic fracturing for shale gas production, both of which represent single
wells. Not plotted are data from some projects that do not represent maximum magnitude seismic events
for that project. Geothermal, extraction, and injection data modified from Figure 3 of Nicol et al. (2011).
Hydraulic fracture data have been added in this study.

strongly suggested to be associated with fluid injection or extraction versus the volume of
fluid reported for the injection or extraction project. The reported data suggest a correla-
tion between the induced earthquake magnitudes and volumes of fluid injected. McGarr
et al. (2002) suggested a correlation between maximum induced magnitude and the scale
of human activity by plotting the maximum induced magnitude versus the dimension of
the human activity (e.g., the maximum dimension of the hydrocarbon activity). Several
points are important regarding these apparent correlations between induced magnitude
and fluid volume: