Injection-induced fault slip and associated seismicity in the lab: Insights from source mechanisms, local stress states and fault geometry

Abstract

Probing source mechanisms of natural and induced earthquakes is a powerful tool to unveil associated rupture kinematics. The source processes of failure and slip instability driven by stress loading are affected by fault geometry, but the source ruptures of injection-induced seismicity in relation to fault structures and local stress states remain poorly understood. We have conducted a series of fault reactivation and slip experiments on sandstone samples containing faults with different surface roughness (smooth saw-cut fault and fractured rough fault). We impose progressive fluid injection to induce fault slip, and simultaneously monitor the associated acoustic emission (AE) activity. Using high-resolution AE recordings, we perform full moment tensor inversion of all located AE sources, and investigate the changes of AE source characteristics associated with induced fault slip and their relation to fault roughness. For the complex and rough fault, we observe significant non-double-couple components of AE sources and a high degree of focal mechanism heterogeneity. The temporal changes of AE mechanisms associated with injection-induced fault slip on the smooth fault reveal increasing proportions of double-couple components and decreasing variability of AE focal mechanisms when approaching the onset of slip events. The observed inconsistency between the nodal planes of AE sources and the macroscopic fault plane orientation is attributed to the development of secondary fracture networks surrounding the principal slip surface. We analyze changes in the magnitude-frequency characteristics and source mechanisms of AEs with fault-normal distance, showing that for the smooth (mature) fault, Gutenberg–Richter b-value of on-fault seismicity is lower and focal mechanisms are less heterogeneous, compared to off-fault seismicity. Our results emphasize the important role of roughness-related changes in local fault geometry and associated stress heterogeneity for source mechanisms and rupture kinematics of injection-induced seismicity.