Applied Seismology Consultants

An Itasca International Company

Microseismic Technologies for

Geothermal Applications

Monitoring Reservoir Development

Using Passive Seismics

www.appliedseismology.com
 Passive Seismic for Reservoir Response
Microseismic monitoring allows engineers to image and visualise active
fracture networks within developing or producing geothermal fields.
Microseismic monitoring
provides crucial reservoir
information:
• Gain information on the development
of Engineered Geothermal Systems
(EGS), and enhance our understanding
of long-term reservoir behaviour

• Increase the productivity and recovery

of the reservoir and assist in the
design and optimal location of
production wells

• Map the position, growth and

effectiveness of hydrofracture
stimulation to assess completion
objectives

• Map extraction and injection paths,

treatment history and fluid migration

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 ASC Geothermal Services
• Array Design Analysis
• Sensitivity and Geomechanical
Analysis
• Characterization of background
seismicity
• Real-time Processing
• Full Post-processing
• Post-treatment Monitoring
• Long-term monitoring and alarm
system
• Enhanced Analysis and
Interpretations
• Quality Check of Acquisition
Settings and Microseismic Dataset
• Training
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 ASC Geothermal Services

ASC is involved in the only commercial EGS project in the EU and for over 15
years we have undertaken international research programs for the monitoring
of rock damage at reservoir scale.

• ASC has pioneered the application of microseismic technologies to geothermal field

development through its InSite Seismic Processor and Enhanced Microseismics
Program
• ASC provides a fully integrated processing service from array design, through data
management and processing to advanced interpretations with dynamic numerical
models to better understand the growth and activation of the fracture structures
• The InSite software suite is independent of any hardware product or vendor. It can be
interfaced to data streams from geophone strings to provide real-time data capture,
or used off-line for advanced post-processing analysis

• ASC’s InSite Seismic Processor includes an online alarm system based on the
recommended traffic-light system

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 Well-site Operations
• Real-time processing of microseismic data provides feed-back of
information to engineers on the position, growth and effectiveness of a
hydrofracture stimulation, or can map extraction and injection paths in a
treated field
• ASC’s InSiteDB uses Microsoft’s latest SQL technologies to provide a remote
database of microseismic event information, configuration parameters and
treatment data that can be shared with remote stakeholders

Continuous Data Stream

from Monitoring Well
InSite Leach Interface Treatment Data and
for Data Capture Field Engineers

InSite Data Triggering Microseismic Stakeholders

Data Acquisition PC
and Processing PC InSiteDB
Locations, Source Remote DataBase
Parameters and
Monitoring tool
Waveforms

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 InSite Microseismic Processor: Standard Tools

MS Data Management Event Harvesting Event Location

• Import and export of raw On-line data capture facility, to • MS location through simple and
and processed trigger events from a complex velocity models
microseismic event data continuous data stream for • Automatic calculation of source
• Event sorting and filtering real-time processing. parameters

Waveform Processing 3D Visualiser

• Manual and automatic • Display of events in 3D

phase picking scene
• Waveform hodogram • Display of field objects,
analysis and rotation, geological structures and
frequency domain analysis. analysis object
• Polarisation analysis • Time playback and display
• Customized multi-filtering of density planes

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 InSite Microseismic Processor: Advanced Tools
Interpretation Tools
• Statistical analysis of fracture
network geometry
• Charts of event parameters
• Display of location uncertainty
Sharing Tools
• SQL database and ESF repository for
access by remote users
• Single up-to-date accessible data
repository
Client Visualiser
Export of InSite project for full 3-D
visualisation and manipulation of
located MS/AE events using
distributable InSite Demo.
S-wave Location
Calculation of waveform source vector
from the S-wave plane polarisation for
events with noisy or poorly defined P-
wave arrivals.
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Array Modeling
• Analysis of the array
performance through the
calculation of misfit,
magnitude sensitivity and
error space
• Display of rays traced
through velocity models
Fieldwork Tools
• Set-up of a microseismic
hydrofracturing project
Acquisition Tools • Guide through the data acquisition
and processing flow for microseismic
Additional license linked monitoring
to a main license for • Coordinate data output and
splitting the acquisition integration with external user
software through an accessible
and processing between
remote database
two PCs for optimizing • Interface to link processing and
real-time processing of acquisition PCs
high-event-rate jobs. • Tool orientation from multiple
calibration shots
7
 MS Locations and Alarm System
• 3D location of microseismic events with the different colour and size of
events scaled to many source parameters
• An alarm system deployed is customized to send email and SMS alerts when
a magnitude or event frequency threshold is exceeded (based on the
recommended traffic-light system)

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 Stimulated Reservoir Volume
• A method to quantify the stimulated volume inferred from
the monitored MS events

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 Quantification of Damage
Monitoring Well
• The cluster index quantifies the degree of
interaction between seismic events based
on their separation and size (source radius
or effective strained volume) Geophones

• This parameter is calculated taking into Treatment Well

account all neighbouring events, and can be
calculated through time to monitor the UP
degree of damage imposed on the rock Cluster Index
N

mass
• Provides better resolution of fracture Monitoring Well

networks that develop during hydrofrac

stimulations. Identify the volumes where
fractures are interconnecting to create
potential fluid pathways
Treatment Well Geophones

UP
N

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 Evolution of Fracture Orientation
• A method to quantify the orientation of fractures
inferred from the monitored MS events

Interpreted plane orientation

Monitoring well

N
Treatment well
E

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 Continuous Record Analysis

• Using continuous microseismic record for

investigating the fracture network growth and

Amplitude
mechanics of hydrofracture data (through
investigating the amplitude, frequency and
energy characteristics) is a novel approach
pioneered by ASC
• It provides a means for diagnosing the quality

Frequency (Hz)
of a data set and then optimizing the
processing of discrete microseismic events
• Continuous records could be used to better
understand the fundamental hydrofracture 2000

propagation mechanics in different geological Slurry Flow Rate (bpm)

Treatment Conditions
1500 Observed Net Pressure (psi)

Treatment
and treatment scenarios – by directly 1000

correlating with scaled laboratory experiments 500

and dynamic numerical models in which 0

seismic energy release is also mapped 0 60 120 180
Time (Minutes)
240 300

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 Synthetic Rock Mass Modelling
Synthetic Rock Mass1 Synthetic seismicity2

Intact rock
Particle velocities (green arrows) and cracks black line –
tensile crack, red line – shear crack

SRM
Discrete Fracture Network
The calculated moment
Basic components in a SRM tensor

1 Mas Ivars et al., 2011, Int. J. Rock Mech. & Min. Sci. An example synthetic seismic shear event
2 Zhao and Young, 2011, Geophysics

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 Hydrodynamic Response in Field and Modelling

500 m
400

300 Magnitude
200 0.46

100 -0.94
0

-100 Time

-200

-300

-400
-500
-500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500 m

Field recorded MS Synthetic MS Fluid flow and induced fractures

in models

• The validated numerical models can help provide insight on the

relationship between seismicity, stress/damage and the fluid front in
order to optimize the EGS reservoir stimulation for the project in hand or
for future projects*

* Zhao, Reyes-Montes, Andrews and Young (2011, GRC Annual Meeting, Best Presentation and Paper)
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