The impact of viscoelastic caprock on fault reactivation and fault rupture in producing gas fields

Geomechanical response to N2 injection as a means of pressure maintenance in a sandstone reservoir

Pressure maintenance by injection of nitrogen into a reservoir is one of the potential options to mitigate induced seismicity during gas production. It is expected that seismicity and the seismic hazard can be reduced by decreasing the stress changes and compaction associated with the declining pore pressure in the reservoir rocks. However,...

The minimum scale of grooving on faults

At the field scale, nearly all fault surfaces contain grooves generated as one side of the fault slips past the other. Grooves are so common that they are one of the key indicators of principal slip surfaces. Here, we show that at sufficiently small scales, grooves do not exist on fault surfaces. A transition to isotropic roughness occurs at 4...

Numerical simulations of enhanced gas recovery at the Załezcze gas field in Poland confirm high co2 storage capacity and mechanical integrity = Des simulations numériques de récupération assistée de gaz sur un gisement de gaz de Załęcze en Pologne confirment les capacités de stockage de CO2 élevées et l’intégrité mécanique dudit gisement

Natural gas from the Załęcze gas field located in the Fore-Sudetic Monocline of the Southern Permian Basin has been produced since November 1973, and continuous gas production led to a decrease in the initial reservoir pressure from 151 bar to about 22 bar until 2010. We investigated a prospective enhanced gas recovery operation at the Załęcze...

Numerical modelling of the mechanical and fluid flow properties of fault zones - Implications for fault seal analysis

Existing fault seal algorithms are based on fault zone composition and fault slip (e.g., shale gouge ratio), or on fault orientations within the contemporary stress field (e.g., slip tendency). In this study, we aim to develop improved fault seal algorithms that account for differences in fault zone composition as well as deformation conditions...

Fluid-assisted healing processes in gouge-bearing faults Insights from experiments on a rock analogue system

On the basis of both experimental and field studies, solution transfer processes are expected to be important in contributing to fault strength recovery (healing) under the hydrothermal conditions prevailing in large parts of the seismogenic zone. However, most experimental work on healing effects in faults has been done using quartzo...

Paleoseismic investigations along the Peel Boundary Fault: Geological setting, site selection and trenching results

On the basis of a multidisciplinary approach we have unraveled the palaeo-earthquake history of a trenched section across the Peel Boundary Fault. The area shows at present one of the largest contrasts in relative motion on both sides of the fault on the basis of repeated levelling. The geological record for the last 25 thousand years, recovered...