oa Hydraulic Fracturing Operation Monitoring Using Sparse Surface Networks

In certain shale or carbonated reservoirs, seismicity associated with Hydraulic Fracturing (HF) or Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques can be detected and characterized by sparse surface networks of high-quality three-component instruments. Here we provide pilot project examples of surface seismic networks, initially deployed for induced seismic monitoring, generating rich data sets in the Duvernay and Montney shale plays in western Canada.

In particular, we show that in environments with favourable surface noise levels, high in-situ stress regime, low anelastic attenuation and shallow depth reservoirs, such networks can detect seismic events down to magnitude -1.0 within the stimulated volume along with induced seismicity on proximate faults.