A fault slip model to study earthquakes due to pore pressure perturbations

TL;DR

This paper presents a model to understand how changes in pore pressure can reactivate faults and cause earthquakes, which is crucial for geothermal energy and CO2 sequestration safety.

Contribution

It introduces a new framework to simulate fault slip caused by pore pressure variations and quantify resulting earthquake magnitudes.

Findings

Framework effectively models fault reactivation due to pore pressure changes

Quantitative assessment of earthquake magnitudes from pore pressure perturbations

Highlights importance for geothermal and CO2 sequestration safety

Abstract

The burgeoning need to sequester anthropogenic CO$_2$ for climate mitigation and the need for energy sustenance leading upto enhanced geothermal energy production has made it incredibly critical to study potential earthquakes due to fluid activity in the subsurface. These earthquakes result from reactivation of faults in the subsurface due to pore pressure perturbations. In this work, we provide a framework to model fault slip due to pore pressure change leading upto quantifying the earthquake magnitude.