Stress State and Probabilistic Assessment of Slip Potential during Geothermal Energy Development, Grande Prairie, AB

The state of stress in depth is an important parameter for subsurface project. One of the applications of knowing the stress state is understanding induced earthquake pattern arising from geothermal energy extraction. Fault slip due to fluid injection (for energy extraction) into underground deep geological layers constitutes an environmental and potential risk issue if induced seismic events are large enough to damage subsurface or surface infrastructure. This project will specify the stress state in the Grand Prairie AB region, where the first geothermal fluids exploitation scheme in AB is in development. We are used in a probabilistic analysis to evaluate the slip potential of linear fault features (existing or hypothesized). Parametric uncertainties are introduced using Monte Carlo methods with constraints established through geomechanics principles, available data, and rational (experiential) assessment. Thus, issues such as uncertainty in fault feature friction coefficient, pressure, input stress data, feature orientation and proximity to processing can be evaluated quantitatively, and risk assessments thereby carried out. The result is the cumulative distribution of the pore pressure required to prevent slip on each preexisting faults in the Grand Prairie AB region.

Faculty Supervisor:

Maurice Dusseault;Yuri Leonenko

Student:

Partner:

Terrapin Geothermics Inc

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Utilities

University:

University of Waterloo

Program: