Types and Causes of Induced Seismicity - Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies - page 30

BOX 2.4
Induced Seismicity at the Rangely, Colorado, Oilfield
The Rangely, Colorado, induced seismicity experiment is an important milestone in the study of induced
seismicity that firmly established the effective stress mechanism for induced seismicity. Water injection at the
Rangely oilfield began in 1957 in response to declining petroleum production and decreased reservoir pressures.
As a result of the waterflooding (secondary recovery) operations, reservoir pore pressures increased throughout
the field, and by 1962 pore pressure in parts of the field substantially exceeded the original preproduction
pressure of about 170 bars (17 MPa). In the same year the Uinta Basin Seismological Observatory, located
about 65 km (~39 miles) from Rangely, began operation and detected numerous small seismic events M ≥ 0.5
in the vicinity of Rangely. With sustained fluid injection and elevated pore pressures the seismic events continued
and the largest, M 3.4, occurred on August 5, 1964. Detailed monitoring with a local U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) seismic network installed in 1969 showed that the seismic events were occurring along a subsurface
fault within the oilfield (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Earthquakes (x) located at Rangely between October 1969 and November 1970. The contours are
bottom-hole 3-day shut-in pressures as of September 1969; the interval is 70 bars (7 MPa). Seismic stations
are represented by triangles; experimental wells are represented by dots. The heavy, dashed line indicates the
fault mapped in the subsurface. SOURCE: Raleigh et al. (1976).