What is it about?
We map the orientations of maximum horizontal stress across the Permian Basin, west Texas and southeast New Mexico. We also map whether the crust is extensional or compressional across this area. Our map shows remarkable but coherent variability in stress orientations in certain areas, especially in the Delaware Basin to the west. Together, this detailed new information about the stress field allows us to predict which orientations of faults are most likely to slip in an earthquake. We estimate the probability that mapped faults will be likely to slip in response to deep injection of wastewater.
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Why is it important?
The Permian Basin is one of the most important oil- and gas-producing regions in the United States, and hundreds of thousands of wells could be drilled there in future decades. In recent years, new clusters of earthquakes have occurred in this region. Our work contributes a detailed view of the remarkable stress field in this area, and it provides operators with tools for reducing the probability of triggering earthquakes during injection.
Perspectives
Our aim is that the Permian Basin not become "Oklahoma 2.0," with widespread and potentially damaging induced earthquakes. Our detailed stress map provides a crucial foundation to efforts to reduce the probability of triggering felt earthquakes. Our map also raises important tectonic and geodynamic questions about the origins of the remarkable variability that we observe in the maximum horizontal stress direction.
Jens-Erik Lund Snee
Stanford University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: State of stress in the Permian Basin, Texas and New Mexico: Implications for induced seismicity, The Leading Edge, February 2018, Society of Exploration Geophysicists,
DOI: 10.1190/tle37020127.1.
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