![]() Creating a next-generation stress mapīuilding on previous efforts to create maps of stress and seismic potential in the Permian Basin, the Stanford researchers added hundreds of new data points from West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, much of the data being provided by the oil and gas industry. In a previous study, Zoback and postdoctoral scholar Cornelius Langenbruch found that in Oklahoma, fluid injection caused about 6,000 years of natural earthquakes to occur in about five years. “Fluid injection can cause a quake on a fault that might not produce a natural earthquake for thousands of years from now,” said study lead author Jens-Erik Lund Snee, a PhD student in the Department of Geophysics at Stanford Earth. But increasing fluid pressure at depth reduces the friction along the fault, sometimes triggering an earthquake. In regions such as the central and eastern U.S., far from tectonic plate boundaries such as the San Andreas Fault, this slippage occurs as a natural process, but very rarely. When the stress field aligns with a pre-existing fault in a certain manner, the fault can slip, potentially producing an earthquake. To gauge the risk of future quakes, researchers must first understand the direction of the stresses in a region and their approximate magnitude. “We want to stop fluid injection from triggering even small earthquakes in Texas so that the probability of larger earthquakes is significantly reduced.” High-stress environment ![]() Page Professor of Geophysics in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences(Stanford Earth), who led a number of the Stanford studies in Oklahoma. “We want to get out ahead of the problem in Texas,” said study co-author Mark Zoback, the Benjamin M. Hundreds of thousands of wells could be drilled in the region in the next few decades. More recently, the advance of hydraulic fracturing techniques has spurred a new development frenzy. In the 1920s, energy companies began extracting the basin’s bountiful petroleum deposits during a boom that lasted decades. Now, Texas is poised to take center stage as the Permian Basin is becoming the country’s most important oil- and gas-producing region. While none of these small-to-moderate earthquakes has yet caused significant property damage or injury, they represent an increased probability of larger earthquakes. Previous Stanford research has shown that wastewater injected as a step in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) underlies an increase in seismic activity in parts of the central and eastern U.S., particularly in Oklahoma, starting in 2005. The new study, published this month in the journal The Leading Edge, provides a color-coded map of the 75,000-square mile region that identifies those potential oil and gas development sites that would be would be most likely to trigger an earthquake associated with fluid injection. This new map of Earth’s stress field in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico could help energy companies avoid causing earthquakes associated with oil extraction. (Image credit: Jens-Erik Lund Snee)
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