Potential of ambient seismic noise techniques to monitor the St. Gallen geothermal site (Switzerland)
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Date
2015-06
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
The failures of two recent deep geothermal energy projects in Switzerland (Basel, 2006; St. Gallen, 2013) have again highlighted that one of the key challenges for the successful development and operation of deep underground heat exchangers is to control the risk of inducing potentially hazardous seismic events. In St. Gallen, after an injection test and two acid injections that were accompanied by a small number of micro-earthquakes (ML<0.2), operators were surprised by an uncontrolled gas release from the formation (gas kick). The “killing” procedures that had to be initiated following standard drilling procedures led to a ML3.5 earthquake. With ambient seismic noise cross correlations from nine stations, we observe a significant loss of waveform coherence that we can horizontally and vertically constrain to the injection location of the fluid. The loss of waveform coherence starts with the onset of the fluid injections 4 days prior to the gas kick. We interpret the loss of coherence as a local perturbation of the medium. We show how ambient seismic noise analysis can be used to assess the aseismic response of the subsurface to geomechanical well operations and how this method could have helped to recognize the unexpected reservoir dynamics at an earlier stage than the microseismic response alone, allowed.
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Publication status
published
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Book title
Journal / series
Volume
120 (6)
Pages / Article No.
4301 - 4316
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Event
Edition / version
Methods
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Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
ambient noise monitoring; geothermal energy; induced seismicity
Organisational unit
02818 - Schweiz. Erdbebendienst (SED) / Swiss Seismological Service (SED)
Notes
Funding
608553 - Integrated Methods for Advanced Geothermal Exploration (EC)