Organizer: Prof. Marie Violay, EPFL
Many faults throughout the Earth’s crust are in a state of critical failure equilibrium. Anthropogenic fluid injections during hydraulic fracturing, reservoir impoundment, the injection of waste water, or CO2 storage can induce small stress perturbations in the underground and lead to fault reactivation and enhanced seismic activity. Although, these examples are clear evidence of the effect of pore fluids on fault strength and its seismic behavior, the mechanics of fluid injection induced earthquakes are poorly understood and evaluating the seismic hazard associated with (at a given site) those events remains difficult to assess. In this mini-symposium, we invite novel contributions based on laboratory experiments, numerical modelling and field work (or a combination of these) covering (but not exclusive to) the following aspects of:
- Characterization and control of the induced seismicity risk.
- Long term processes (chemistry, fluids & mechanics) and their importance for the economics of deep reservoirs production.
- Thermo-hydro-mechanical couplings in reservoirs.
We particularly welcome contributions from early career scientists.
