Geophys. J. Int. (2009) 179, 634–639 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2009.04316.

FA S T T R A C K PA P E R

The creation of an asymmetric hydraulic fracture as a result

of driving stress gradients

T. Fischer,1 S. Hainzl2 and T. Dahm3

1 Institute
of Geophysics, Academy of Sciences and Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. E-mail: tomfis@ig.cas.cz
2 GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
3 University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Accepted 2009 June 30. Received 2009 June 29; in original form 2008 March 18

SUMMARY
Hydraulic fracture stimulation is frequently performed in hydrocarbon reservoirs and geother-
mal systems to increase the permeability of the rock formation. These hydraulic fractures are
often mapped by hypocentres of induced microearthquakes. In some cases microseismicity
exhibits asymmetry relative to the injection well, which can be interpreted by unequal con-
ditions for fracture growth at opposite sides of the well or by observation effects. Here we
GJI Volcanology, geothermics, fluids and rocks

investigate the role of the lateral change of the minimum compressive stress. We use a simple
model to describe the relation among the lateral stress gradient, the mean viscous pressure
gradients in the fracture wings, the fracture geometry, and the net pressure in the fracture.
Our model predicts a faster fracture growth in the direction of decreasing stress and a limited
growth in the opposite direction. We derive a simple relationship to estimate the lateral stress
gradient from the injection pressure and the shape of the seismic hypocentre cloud. The model
is tested by microseismic data obtained during stimulation of a Canyon Sands gas field in
West Texas. Using a maximum likelihood method we fit the parameters of the asymmetric
fracture model to the space–time pattern of hypocentres. The estimated stress gradients per
metre are in the range from 0.008 to 0.010 times the bottom-hole injection overpressure
(8–10 kPa m−1 assuming the net pressure of 1 MPa). Such large horizontal gradients in the
order of the hydrostatic gradient could be caused by the inhomogeneous extraction of gas
resulting in a lateral change of the effective normal stress acting normal to the fracture wall.
Key words: Downhole methods; Geomechanics; Fracture and flow; Earthquake source
observations.

be estimated either by hydraulic fracture modelling using the phys-

1 I N T RO D U C T I O N
Injection of various fluids into rock mass is widely used to increase
permeability in hydrocarbon and geothermal reservoirs. If the in-
jection pressure exceeds the minimum compressive stress, a tensile
fracture is created and propagates from the injection point in two op-
posite directions along the direction of the maximum compressive
stress component σ 1 . The fracture growth is accompanied by brittle
fracturing, which radiates acoustic energy. Location of the associ-
ated microseismic events enables spatial mapping of the stimulated
rock volume, particularly its orientation and growth characteristics
(House 1987; Baisch & Harjes 2003).
The growth of the hydraulic fracture, the so-called hydrofracture,
depends on the stress orientation in the rock mass, the rock stiffness
and existence of preexisting cracks, the injection rate and the leakoff
(i.e. loss of the injected fluid to the fracture walls). The parameters
of the hydraulic fracture, such as the length and its time dependence,
the fracturing fluid loss and its infiltration into reservoir rocks, may
ical parameters of the injected fluid and rock (e.g. Economides &
Nolte 2003) or by mapping the fracture extension using the in-
duced microseismicity (Fischer et al. 2008). Symmetric growth is
generally assumed for modelling of fracture properties from hy-
draulic tests (Economides & Nolte 2003). In other cases, however,
asymmetric activity of induced microseismicity has been observed
(Kochnev et al. 2007; Fischer et al. 2008).
It has been discussed whether in some cases an asymmetric pat-
tern of hydrofrac-induced hypocentres might have been related to
the geometry of the seismic network or asymmetric fracture ini-
tiation associated with the limited number of perforation shots or
local heterogeneities. However, it appears that this sort of asymmet-
ric heterogeneities is usually limited to a single sedimentary layer
rather than it would span vertically over several layers. Accordingly,
if the hydrofracture in different layers exhibits the same direction
of asymmetry (Fischer et al. 2008), and hypocentres show a simi-
lar migration pattern during different experiments within different

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 Asymmetric hydraulic fractures as a result of driving stress gradients 635

sedimentary layers, alternative explanations should be sought. In

this paper, we propose that a lateral change in stress would result
in the asymmetric shape of the hydraulic fracture, which would
preferentially grow in the direction of decreasing confining stress.
Different hydromechanical fracture models have been developed
in the past. Well-known models are those by Khristianovich &
Zheltov (1955) and Geertsma & de Klerk (1969) (KGD-model)
or Perkins & Kern (1961) and Nordgren (1972) (PKN-model, for
discussion see Economides & Nolte 2003). These models aim to
estimate the fracture width as a function of injection pressure, flow
rate and fracture length. They were not developed to understand
fracture-induced seismicity and none of these models considers the
effect of lateral stress gradients on fracture growth. The model we
propose explains the asymmetric pattern of induced seismicity and
the asymmetric growth of fractures that develop if stress gradients
are present, that is, the relative length change in two opposite wings
of the fracture. It does not aim to specify the absolute length or width
of the fracture and does not depend on the vertical cross-sectional
shape as the PKN or KGD models. Our model is focused to the
period of injection only when the new fracture is being created.
This paper is structured as follows. First, we show the hydrofrac-
ture asymmetry observed in a low-permeable sandstone gas field
in West Texas (Fischer et al. 2008). Second, we propose that the
asymmetry could be caused by the horizontal stress gradient and
introduce a hydromechanical model to relate the asymmetric ge-
ometry of the fracture to the stress gradient. Finally, we apply this
model to the observed fracture asymmetry and determine the hori-
zontal stress gradient in different stimulated layers. We also discuss
the parameters obtained and possible causes of the stress gradients
in the West Texas gas field.

2 A S Y M M E T R I C H Y D RO F R AC T U R E
I N C A N YO N S A N D S
The asymmetry observed by Fischer et al. (2008, see Fig. 1) was
manifested both during the injection phase in the different length
and speed of growth of the fracture wings, and also after shut-in by Figure 1. Distribution of microseismicity accompanying hydraulic stimula-
continued growth in one direction only. This is illustrated in Fig. 2 tion of Canyon Sands formation in Western Texas. Different colours indicate
that shows the time dependence of the position of microearthquake events belonging to different injection stages 1, 2, 3 and 4 stimulated from
hypocentres along the extension of the hydrofracture. These plots injection points indicated by black rectangles. Note the highly asymmetric
clearly show that during injection period the fracture extended faster fracture, in particular in the depth layers A and B.
in the direction of positive coordinates (NE direction in the map view
of Fig. 1) and after shut-in continued growing only to NE. Because
ever, the maximum SNR, which is proportional to the maximum
the asymmetry, namely of the after-shut-in growth, occurred in all
observed amplitude, should decrease with increasing hypocentral
stimulated depth layers in the whole depth range of 250 m, it cannot
distance and converge to the minimum SNR. As we do not observe
be explained by a local scale heterogeneity of the rock stiffness or
this convergence at the shorter (left) fracture tip in any depth layer,
permeability in one sediment layer. Also an unfavourable orientation
we can rule out the influence of the different distances between the
of the perforations shots appears rather unlikely to explain the same
fracture tips and the monitoring system on the observed fracture
asymmetry in the different depth levels, because the orientation
asymmetry.
of the perforation guns was not controlled during the treatment
As an alternative explanation we suggest that the fracture asym-
and thus uncorrelated in the different layers. Furthermore, the guns
metry was caused by a gradient of the stress driving the fracture
with shots covering the whole circle in 60◦ intervals were used
growth. In the next section, we describe the fracture model includ-
(J. Le Calvez, 2008, personal communication) leading to an almost
ing the effect of stress gradient; the possible sources of the gradient
preferable orientation in each layer.
are discussed in Section 4.
To check whether the asymmetry is not an artefact of the mon-
itoring conditions, we determined the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR)
of events along the fracture strike (Fig. 3). Because the minimum
3 MODEL
SNR is proportional to the minimum detectable signal at the mon-
itoring array, it is independent of hypocentral distance and should Our model is limited to the period of fluid injection when the frac-
be approximately constant. This is in agreement with the measured ture continues growing. It is based on the following simplifying
minimum SNR in Fig. 3 ranging mostly between 10 and 15 dB. How- assumptions.


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636 T. Fischer, S. Hainzl and T. Dahm

200
along fracture from injection [m]

150

100

50

−50

−100

−150
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
time since perforation [min]

Figure 2. The time dependence of the positions of microearthquake

hypocentres along the strike direction of the hydrofracture (dots) for stage
3 injection (layers B and C). The grey lines indicate the expected front of
seismicity in case of a symmetric hydrofracture growth during the injection
period of 27 min.

(i) The position of microseismic events maps the hydrofracture,

and in particular the seismic front maps the fracture front.
(ii) The hydrofracture occurs in a horizontally stratified sedi-
mentary rock, that is, we neglect possible topography effects of the
fracture walls such as roughness and tortuosity.
(iii) The conditions for fracture initiation on the wellbore are
isotropic.
(iv) The gradient of the stress normal to the fracture is constant
in the scale of the fracture.

3.1 Fracture model equations

A schematic illustration is given in Fig. 4. Fluids are injected at
depth into the rock formation at horizontal position x = 0 and
with a volume flux q. The volume flux in the borehole splits at the
injection point into two components associated with the left and
right wing of the newly created fracture.
The downhole injection pressure P0 is held constant during in-
jection. We suppose a laterally homogeneous medium with con-
stant differential stress σ 1 – σ 3 ; we define the compressive stress
as positive. The large-scale stress heterogeneity of the medium is
characterized by the mean horizontal gradient g of the lithostatic
stress, which adds-up both to the maximum and minimum horizon-
tal stresses σ 1 and σ 3 . The hydrofracture opens in the direction of
σ 3 ; its opening and shape depends on the driving stress on the tips
and elastic medium properties of the rock.
The driving pressure p net (termed also net pressure) is defined by
the difference between absolute fluid pressure P and normal stress
σ 3 on the fracture wall, that is, p net = P − σ 3 . A positive driving
pressure drives the growth of the fracture at both tips and keeps the
fracture open. The length of the fracture wing is increasing with
time and denoted by a(t) > 0 The absolute fluid pressure is equal
to the injection pressure P0 in the injection point and decreases due
to viscous losses along the hydrofracture wings down to P1 on the
left and to P2 on the right fracture tips. We characterize the pressure
drop between the injection point and the fracture tips by the mean
pressure gradients gv1 (t) and gv2 (t) (gv1 > 0, gv2 < 0). The injected
viscous fluid flows along both wings with average velocities v1 (t)
Figure 3. Signal-to-noise ratios (dots) of microearthquakes located along
the hydrofracture extension for three depth layers indicated in Fig. 1. The
blue and red curves show the minimum and maximum signal-to-noise ratio
(its 5- and 95-percentile) calculated in a moving window of 10 m length
with the step of 4 m.
and v2 (t). The flow type is assumed to be similar in both wings of
the fracture (e.g. laminar).
We first discuss the uncoupled left and right wing separately. The
fracture wings have a length a and stationary flow of the injected
fluid inside. Accordingly, the pressure at the tip of the left and
right wing decreases due to viscous losses to P 1 = P 0 − gv1 a, and
P 2 = P 0 + gv2 a, respectively. The condition for a hydraulic fracture
growth requires that the net pressure at a fracture tip is at least zero,
that is, P 1 = σ 3 (− a) and similarly P 2 = σ 3 (a). Expressing the
minimum stress σ 3 at fracture tips by the minimum stress at x = 0,
σ 30 and the stress gradient g, the growth condition reads as
P0 − gv1 · a = σ30 − g · a or g − gv1 = − p0net /a (1)
and similarly
P0 + gv2 · a = σ30 + g · a or g − gv2 = + p0net /a, (2)


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 Asymmetric hydraulic fractures as a result of driving stress gradients 637
 t  t
a1 = −v1 (τ ) d(τ ) and a2 = v2 (τ ) d(τ ), and obtain a time-
0 0
dependent solution by means of integration of eq. (4) as
 t  t  t  t
g g
net v1 (τ )a dτ − v1 (τ ) dτ = net v2 (τ )a dτ + v2 (τ ) dτ
p0 0 0 p0 0 0

g a1 (t)2 g a2 (t)2
− net
+ a1 (t) = net + a2 (t).
p0 2 p0 2
(5)

 initial condition is a1 = a2 = 0 for t → 0, and we have solved

The
v1 a dτ = −a12 /2 and v2 a dτ = +a22 /2 by partial integration.
The values a1 and a2 in (5) represent the fracture length of the
coupled left and right wing from the beginning of injection to time
Figure 4. Stress and fluid pressure model for growth of two wings of t. Finally, we can equate the lateral stress gradient g as
hydraulic fracture of height h and length a. The injection flux q separates to  
the two fracture wings. The minimum stress component σ 3 decreases with
a1 (t) − a2 (t)
g = 2 p0net . (6)
gradient g < 0 while the fluid pressure in the hydraulic fracture drops with a1 (t)2 + a2 (t)2
the distance from injection due to the viscous losses. The mean viscous
To determine g, one needs to know the downhole injection pressure
gradients gv1 and gv2 represent the pressure loss between the injection point
and the fracture tip.
P0 and the closure stress σ 30 . P0 can be either measured during the
injection or it can be calculated from the surface pressure using
the viscous losses in the borehole and the fluid density. The closure
where p net
0 is the net pressure at the injection point. The net pressure stress σ 30 is usually available from shut-in pressures. If any of
0 and the net gradient g − gv control the opening shape of the
pnet these quantities are not known, our model enables to determine the
fracture wing, and thus influence fluid flow and the flow-related stress gradient related to the net pressure, for example, the quantity
pressure drop. We define w = w(a) as the average width of the g/ pnet
0 .
fracture wing. It is noteworthy that the average width of the left and
right fracture wing of length a is the same, because the net gradient
acting in the fracture depends only on p net
0 and a.
3.2 Model predictions
The flow field in the fracture wing is approximated by a parabolic
laminar flow in ±x direction and the average velocity is given by Solution of eq. (6) gives the relation between the length a1 (t) and
a2 (t) of the short and long wings
v1 ∼ −gv1 w 2
and v2 ∼ −gv2 w .2
(3) ⎡ ⎤
 
p0net ⎣ g g 2
The proportionality constant depends on the fluid viscosity and the a1 (t) = 1 − 1 − 2 net a2 (t) − a2 (t)2 ⎦. (7)
cross-sectional geometry of the fracture. g p0 p0net
The length dependent, uncoupled formulation is used to eliminate
the unknown width w(a), The net pressure p net0 may either be constant, as assumed in the
derivation, or slightly varying with time. For instance, fluid storage
v1 (a) gv1 (a)w2 (a) gv1 (a) g + p0net /a
= = = or leakoff can be assumed to act even over the whole fracture length
v2 (a) gv2 (a)w2 (a) gv2 (a) g − p0net /a and may be considered by a change of p net 0 with time. The mutual
ga/ p0net + 1 relation between the lengths of hydrofracture wings a1 and a2 de-
= scribed by eq. (7) is illustrated in Fig. 5 for different values of the
ga/ p0net − 1
ratio g/ p net
0 . Different curves show the growth of the length a1 of the
or smaller wing for a linear growth of the larger wing a2 . As expected,
   
g g the length of the smaller wing equals the length of the larger wing
v1 (a) a − 1 = v2 (a) a + 1 . (4)
p0net p0net for a zero stress gradient g and decreases with increasing g.
The fracture can only grow as long as the square root in (7)
Eq. (4) is valid for any length a when |gv1,2 | > 0, that is, until a pnet √
has a positive argument, in particular for − 0g > ( 2 − 1)a2 (t);
stops growing. It is important to note that the width in both wings is
not the same at a given time t, since then the fractures have different note that g > 0. Analysis of the derivative da1
da2
shows that a1 reaches
lengths. p0net
maximum at a2 (t) = − g and decreases with continuing injection,
The next step is to introduce a quasi-static model that couples the that is, a2 (t). Thus a too low injection pressure may, however, result
growth of the left and right wing. We assume that the velocity of in an initial growth of the shorter fracture wing followed by its
the growing tip of a fracture wing is equal to the average velocity continuous closure. Although such a behaviour can be expected for
of the flow in ±x direction, that is, v1,2 = ∓da(t)/dt. This can low net pressures or very long injection periods, our theory does
be justified since the growth rate of the average thickness is much not properly consider this case since the flow in the shorter wing
smaller than the growth rate of the tip, so that laminar flow is may turn at this point and thus eq. (4) would not hold. Accordingly,
very likely conserved during growth. Additionally, we suppose that we plot in Fig. 5 only the range where a1 is increasing. One way
leakoff could be neglected or is compensated by increasing injection to make the fracture more symmetric is to increase the injection
with time. pressure with time. This is illustrated in Fig. 5(b) calculated for
Since the time is not explicitly present in eq. (4) the relation a slowly increasing injection pressure in the form of t0.25 , which
can be expressed as a function a = a(t). We define the length is in accordance with the Perkins–Kern–Nordgren (PKN) model of

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638 T. Fischer, S. Hainzl and T. Dahm

200 g=0 200 g=0

g/P0 = −0.001 g/P0 = −0.001
g/P0 = −0.003 g/P0 = −0.003
g/P0 = −0.01 g/P0 = −0.01

150 150
a1, m

a1, m
100 100

50 50

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
a ,m a ,m
2 2

Figure 5. Relation between the lengths of hydrofracture wings a1 and a2 for different ratios g/ p net 0 of the stress gradient g and injection net pressure
p net net 0.25 . Assuming p net = 1 MPa the different values of g/ p net
0 . While in (a) the injection net pressure p 0 is kept constant, in (b) it is increasing with time as t 0 0
correspond to the stress gradient g of 1, 3 and 10 kPa m−1 .

hydraulic fracture (Economides & Nolte 2003, pp. 6–4). In this case
the growth of the smaller wing is faster.
4 A P P L I C AT I O N T O T H E C A N Y O N
S A N D S D ATA S E T A N D D I S C U S S I O N
We test our model predictions of the asymmetry by means of the
microseismic data set acquired during a hydraulic fracture treatment
of a tight gas reservoir in Canyon Sands, West Texas (see Figs 1
and 2).
For the following analysis, we assume that the seismicity clouds
match approximately the underlying hydrofracture geometry and
that pnet
0 was constant during injection. To determine the time-
dependence of the lengths of the hydrofracture wings a1 (t) and
a2 (t), we apply the methodology described in our previous paper
(Fischer et al. 2008). Here, we give only a brief description. Based on
the mass balance equation for fluids, the wing-length L of a straight
planar height-fixed fracture (PKN model) is given as a function of
√
time t according to L(t) = (t − t0 )/(a + b t − t0 ) with constants
√
a = 2hw/q and b = 4 2hC/q (Economides & Nolte 2003; Shapiro
et al. 2006). Here h and w are the average height and width of the
fracture, C the leakoff coefficient, and t0 the initiation time of the
hydrofracture.
We use this parametrization to fit the observed hydrofracture
growth a2 (t). According to our model, the expected temporal growth
of the shorter fracture wing a1 (t) is then directly determined from
a2 (t) and the parameter g/ p net
0 using eq. (7). Thus our model consists
of three parameters (a, b and g/ p net
0 ) and an unknown hydrofracture
initiation point x0 and time t0 . As input data we use the positions of
microearthquake hypocentres along the strike of the hydrofracture
as a function of the earthquake origin times. We simultaneously
optimize all five model parameters by means of a grid-search using
a maximum likelihood method.
The results for the depth layers A and B stimulated by the in-
jections during the stages 2, 3 and 4 in which the asymmetry is
most pronounced are given in Table 1; the error intervals of g refer
to a 86 per cent decrease of the likelihood function. Fig. 6 shows
the fits of the seismicity evolution. It appears that our model fits the

Figure 6. The time dependence of the positions of microearthquake hypocentres along the strike direction of the hydrofracture (dots) for different depth
intervals and injection stages: stage 2 injection in layer B (a), stage 3 injection in layer B (b), and stage 4 injection in layer A. The horizontal grey bars indicate
the injection period for which the fit of the asymmetric rupture growth was determined. The parameters of the different curves are given in Table 1; thin lines
refer to the lower and upper bound of the estimated g-value. In (a), the dashed lines indicate the trend after shut-in.


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 Asymmetric hydraulic fractures as a result of driving stress gradients
Table 1. Resulting parameters of the maximum likelihood method.
Layer Stage x0 (m) t0 (min) a (min m−1 ) b g/ p net (1 m−1 )
0
A 4 −6.0 0.0 0.17 0.01 0.008 [0.007, 0.009]
B 3 10.0 1.2 0.20 0.0 0.008 [0.007, 0.009]
B 2 12.0 11.8 0.22 0.0 0.010 [0.006, 0.013]
observational data quite well. For the deeper layer B, the larger wing
is found to grow linearly with time in agreement with our previous
results (Fischer et al. 2008) showing a zero fluid leakoff (b = 0).
As the net pressure is not known for this data set, we scale the es-
timated stress gradient in Table 1 to the same units by the assumed
net pressure p net
0 = 1 MPa. The resulting lateral stress gradients
g = 10, 8 and 8 kPa m−1 for the injection stages 2, 3 and 4 approach
the hydrostatic gradient of 10 kPa m−1 , which appears as a rather
large value and could indicate that the net pressure was probably
smaller.
In general, g could be interpreted by a lateral variation of the rock
strength, normal stress on the fracture wall and also by inclinations
of the reservoir layers. However, inclined layers would result in only
a very small gradient in fractions of the lithostatic stress. Further-
more, the well logs and locations of events show almost horizontal
layers, which rules out this interpretation. We also expect that the
strength variations in horizontal layers are negligible compared to
the possible pore pressure changes influencing the effective stress.
Accordingly, the pore pressure gradient due to inhomogeneous de-
pletion of the gas field appears the most likely interpretation. In par-
ticular, a local depletion of a low-permeability reservoir can result
in suprahydrostatic lateral pore-pressure gradients if the reservoir
is exerted to lithostatic conditions.
5 C O N C LU S I O N S
We referred to the asymmetric shape of hydraulic fractures cre-
ated by an injection of fluids in the rock formations and suggested
that, besides other possible interpretations, the asymmetry could be
easily explained by the horizontal gradient of the confining stress,
which results in a different closure pressure on opposite sides of
injection. We propose a fracture model and derive simple analytical
equations to relate the lateral stress gradient to the parameters of the
hydrofracture. This model indicates that the lateral stress gradient
can be determined from the net pressure and the length difference
between the fracture wings. We tested the model on the asymmet-
ric microseismicity accompanying the growth of hydraulic fracture
in the Canyon Sands formation in West Texas. Application of our

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639
model to the depth intervals with the most asymmetric behaviour
showed that the ratio between the lateral stress gradient and the
overpressure ranges from 0.008 to 0.010 1 m−1 . Provided the net
pressure is in the range of 1 MPa, the lateral stress gradients would
span the range from 8 to 10 kPa m−1 . We assume that such large
lateral gradients, which are in the order of the hydrostatic gradient,
could be explained by unequal depletion of a tight gas field in both
horizontal and vertical directions.
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
We are grateful for critical comments and inspiring inputs from
J. Mls, J. Le Calvez, E. Brown, L. Eisner and P. Bulant. The opinion
of two anonymous reviewers and the detailed review report of the
editor, J. Renner helped us to improve the manuscript. The work of
the first two authors was supported by the European Union Transfer
of Knowledge project IMAGES (MTKI-CT-2004-517242) and of
the first one by the Czech research projects MSM0021620855 and
AV0Z30120515.
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