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Effect of pore pressure magnitude on the frictional properties and permeability evolution of fractures in schist

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Abstract

Fluid injection-triggered seismicity has increased dramatically over the last decade with elevated pore fluid pressures acting as a prime culprit. Thus, understanding the effect of pore fluid pressure on the mechanical and hydrologic behavior of fractures and faults will illuminate the contributing and dominant physical processes. We present concurrent measurements of shear displacement and flow to quantify the evolution of frictional strength, stability and permeability of schist during the full seismic cycle. We use a miniature double direct shear (mini-DDS) apparatus to conduct velocity step** (VS for stability) and slide-hold-slide (SHS for frictional healing). Our results demonstrate that increasing pore fluid pressures can stabilize frictional slip under otherwise invariant effective stresses. This implies that elevated pressures favor stable slip as a material characteristic even in the absence of decreasing critical fault stiffness (thereby increasing stability) as a result of decreased effective stress. However, the magnitude of pore pressure does not control permeability evolution during velocity steps as pore pressure does not control aperture dilation/compaction for an invariant effective normal stress. During SHS tests, it is shown that the magnitude of normalized permeability change increases with hold time and that the rate of permeability change generally decreases with the increment of pore fluid pressure, suggesting that high fluid pressures may limit permeability change during interseismic response, although creep response may still dominate over the long term.

Article Highlights

  • Increasing pore fluid pressures stabilizes frictional slip under invariant effective stresses.

  • The magnitude of pore pressure is not a dominant control on permeability evolution for an invariant effective normal stress.

  • Elevated pore fluid pressure reduces healing rate and limits permeability change rate for invariant effective normal stresses.

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Acknowledgements

This work is a partial result of support from the DOE EGS Collab Project: Stimulation Investigations for Geothermal Modeling, Analysis and Validation and from DOE award DE-EE0008763. This support is gratefully acknowledged. EGS-Collab Team—Author list appended at the end of the manuscript.

EGS-Collab Team members by organization

DOE: L. Boyd, Z. Frone, E. Metcalfe, A. Nieto, S. Porse, W. Vandermeer. INL. R. Podgorney, G. Neupane. LBNL: J. Ajo-Franklin, P.J. Cook, P.F. Dobson, C.A. Doughty, Y. Guglielmi, M. Hu, R.S. Jayne, K. Kim, T. Kneafsey, S. Nakagawa, G. Newman, P. Petrov, M. Robertson, J. Rutqvist, M. Schoenball, E.L. Sonnenthal, F.A. Soom, C. Ulrich, C.A. Valladao, T. Wood, Y.Q. Zhang, Q. Zhou. LANL: L. Huang, Y. Chen, B. Chi, Z. Feng, L.P. Frash, K. Gao, E. Jafarov, S. Karra, N. Makedonska, W. Pan, R. Pawar, N. Welch. LLNL: P. Fu, R.J. Mellors, J.P. Morris, M.M. Smith, D. Templeton, H. Wu. NETL: J. Moore, S. Brown, D. Crandall, P. Mackey, T. Paronish, S. Workman. NREL: B. Johnston, K. Beckers, J. Weers. ORNL: Y. Polsky, Monica Maceira, Cheng** Chai. PNNL: A. Bonneville, J.A. Burghardt, J. Horner, T.C. Johnson, H. Knox, J. Knox, B.Q. Roberts, P. Sprinkle, C.E. Strickland, J.N. Thomle, V.R. Vermeul, M.D. White. SNL: D. Blankenship, M. Ingraham, J. Pope, P. Schwering, A. Foris, DK King, J. Feldman, M. Lee, J. Su. SURF: T. Baumgartner, J. Heise, M. Horn, B. Pietzyk, D. Rynders, G. Vandine, D. Vardiman, Subs: Thomas Doe, TDoeGeo Rock Fracture Consulting; Golder Associates Inc; J. McLennan, University of Utah. CSM – Y.S. Wu, J. Miskimins, P. Winterfeld, K. Kutun. Stanford—M.D. Zoback—A. Singh, Stanford—R.N. Horne, K. Li, A. Hawkins, Y. Zhang. Mattson Hydrology LLC: E. Mattson. Penn State—D. Elsworth, K.J. Im, Z. Li, C.J. Marone, E.C. Yildirim. Rice University—Jonathan Ajo-Franklin. The University of Oklahoma—A. Ghassemi, Dharmendra Kumar, Varahanaresh Sesetty, Alex Vachaparampil. University of Wisconsin -Madison– H.F. Wang, Hiroki Sone, Kate Condon, and Bezalel Haimson. South Dakota School of Mines and Technology—W. Roggenthen, C. Medler, N. Uzunlar, Carson Reimers. ResFrac—M.W. McClure

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Ziyan Li, Derek Elsworth & Chaoyi Wang

  2. Department of Geosciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Derek Elsworth

  3. G3 Center and EMS Energy Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Ziyan Li, Derek Elsworth & Chaoyi Wang

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Li, Z., Elsworth, D. & Wang, C. Effect of pore pressure magnitude on the frictional properties and permeability evolution of fractures in schist. Geomech. Geophys. Geo-energ. Geo-resour. 8, 214 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40948-022-00504-0

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