Fault Slippage Expands Beyond Fluid Zone in Deep Well Injections (IMAGE)
Caption
Injection of wastewater kilometers below ground leads to a region of pressurized pore fluid in rock (blue shaded region). The authors of the study find that such injection can induce the slow rupture of faults (thick black lines) that propagates faster than the fluid can migrate. The stress perturbation from this fault slip may be the leading cause of an expanding cloud of seismicity (grey circles), often observed in the field. Thin black lines indicate pre-existing, but not-yet-activated faults.
Credit
Rob Viesca & Pathikrit Bahattacharya, Tufts University
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