COSEISMIQ

Over the last decade induced seismicity has become an important topic of discussion, especially owing to the concern that industrial activities could cause damaging earthquakes. Large magnitude induced seismic events are a risk for the population and structures, as well as an obstacle for the development of new techniques for the exploitation of underground georesources. The problem of induced seismicity is particularly important for the future development of geothermal energy in Europe, in fact deep geothermal energy exploitation projects such as Basel (2006) and St Gallen (2013) have been aborted due to the felt induced earthquakes they created and an increasing risk aversion of the general population. Induced seismicity is thus an unwanted product of such industrial operations but, at the same time, induced earthquakes are also a required mechanism to increase the permeability of rocks, enhancing reservoir performances. Analysis of induced microseismicity allows to obtain the spatial distribution of fractures within the reservoir, which can help, not only to identify active faults that may trigger large induced seismic events, but also to optimize hydraulic stimulation operations and to locate the regions with higher permeability, enhancing energy production. The project COSEISMIQ integrates seismic monitoring and imaging techniques, geomechanical models and risk analysis methods with the ultimate goal of implementing innovative tools for the management of the risks posed by induced seismicity and demonstrate their usefulness in a commercial scale application in Iceland.

Seismic stations of the COSEISMIQ project (PDF, 0.13 MB)