Ernest L. Majer

Hydrogeological characterization of the south oyster bacterial transport site using geophysical data

A multidisciplinary research team has conducted a field-scale bacterial transport study within an uncontaminated sandy Pleistocene aquifer near Oyster, Virginia. The overall goal of the project was to evaluate the importance of heterogeneities in controlling the field-scale transport of bacteria that are injected into the ground for remediation purposes. Geochemical, hydrological, geological, and geophysical data were collected to characterize the site prior to conducting chemical and bacterial injection experiments. In this paper we focus on results of a hydrogeological characterization effort using geophysical data collected across a range of spatial scales. The geophysical data employed include surface ground-penetrating radar, radar cross-hole tomography, seismic cross-hole tomography, cone penetrometer, and borehole electromagnetic flowmeter. These data were used to interpret the subregional and local stratigraphy, to provide high-resolution hydraulic conductivity estimates, and to provide information about the log conductivity spatial correlation function. The information from geophysical data was used to guide and assist the field operations and to constrain the numerical bacterial transport model. Although more field work of this nature is necessary to validate the usefulness and cost-effectiveness of including geophysical data in the characterization effort, qualitative and quantitative comparisons between tomographically obtained flow and transport parameter estimates with hydraulic well bore and bromide breakthrough measurements suggest that geophysical data can provide valuable, high-resolution information. This information, traditionally only partially obtainable by performing extensive and intrusive well bore sampling, may help to reduce the ambiguity associated with hydrogeological heterogeneity that is often encountered when interpreting field-scale bacterial transport data.

Estimation of permeable pathways and water content using tomographic radar data

Near‐surface environmental investigations often require monitoring of the spatial distribution of water content and identification of preferential fluid flow paths. Water content estimates are needed, for example, to model and predict pollutant transport through the vadose zone and to subsequently design an efficient and reliable remediation plan. The characteristics of preferential flow paths, as well as the location and geometry of these features, are necessary to model and predict flow and transport in complex geological media such as fractured or strongly heterogeneous porous systems.

Preseismic velocity changes observed from active source monitoring at the Parkfield SAFOD drill site

Measuring stress changes within seismically active fault zones has been a long-sought goal of seismology. One approach is to exploit the stress dependence of seismic wave velocity, and we have investigated this in an active source cross-well experiment at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) drill site. Here we show that stress changes are indeed measurable using this technique. Over a two-month period, we observed an excellent anti-correlation between changes in the time required for a shear wave to travel through the rock along a fixed pathway (a few microseconds) and variations in barometric pressure. We also observed two large excursions in the travel-time data that are coincident with two earthquakes that are among those predicted to produce the largest coseismic stress changes at SAFOD. The two excursions started approximately 10 and 2 hours before the events, respectively, suggesting that they may be related to pre-rupture stress induced changes in crack properties, as observed in early laboratory studies.

Seismological investigations at The Geysers geothermal field

Submitted to Geophysics LBL-7023 Preprint SEISMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE GEYSERS GEOTHERMAL FI~D E. L. Majer ~nd T. V. McEvilly December 1977 Prepared for the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-4B

Coping with earthquakes induced by fluid injection

Hazard may be reduced by managing injection activities Large areas of the United States long considered geologically stable with little or no detected seismicity have recently become seismically active. The increase in earthquake activity began in the mid-continent starting in 2001 (1) and has continued to rise. In 2014, the rate of occurrence of earthquakes with magnitudes (M) of 3 and greater in Oklahoma exceeded that in California (see the figure). This elevated activity includes larger earthquakes, several with M > 5, that have caused significant damage (2, 3). To a large extent, the increasing rate of earthquakes in the mid-continent is due to fluid-injection activities used in modern energy production (1, 4, 5). We explore potential avenues for mitigating effects of induced seismicity. Although the United States is our focus here, Canada, China, the UK, and others confront similar problems associated with oil and gas production, whereas quakes induced by geothermal activities affect Switzerland, Germany, and others.

Wave propagation through elastic porous media containing two immiscible fluids

[1] Acoustic wave phenomena in porous media containing multiphase fluids have received considerable attention in recent years because of an increasing scientific awareness of poroelastic behavior in groundwater aquifers. To improve quantitative understanding of these phenomena, a general set of coupled partial differential equations was derived to describe dilatational wave propagation through an elastic porous medium permeated by two immiscible fluids. These equations, from which previous models of dilatational wave propagation can be recovered as special cases, incorporate both inertial coupling and viscous drag in an Eulerian frame of reference. Two important poroelasticity concepts, the linearized increment of fluid content and the closure relation for porosity change, originally defined for an elastic porous medium containing a single fluid, also are generalized for a two-fluid system. To examine the impact of relative fluid saturation and wave excitation frequency (50, 100, 150, and 200 Hz) on free dilatational wave behavior in unconsolidated porous media, numerical simulations of the three possible modes of wave motion were conducted for Columbia fine sandy loam containing either an air-water or oil-water mixture. The results showed that the propagating (P1) mode, which results from in-phase motions of the solid framework and the two pore fluids, moves with a speed equal to the square root of the ratio of an effective bulk modulus to an effective density of the fluid-containing porous medium, regardless of fluid saturation and for both fluid mixtures. The nature of the pore fluids exerts a significant influence on the attenuation of the P1 wave. In the air-water system, attenuation was controlled by material density differences and the relative mobilities of the pore fluids, whereas in the oil-water system an effective kinematic shear viscosity of the pore fluids was the controlling parameter. On the other hand, the speed and attenuation of the two diffusive modes (P2, resulting from out-of-phase motions of the solid framework and the fluids, and P3, the result of capillary pressure fluctuations) were closely associated with an effective dynamic shear viscosity of the pore fluids. The P2 and P3 waves also had the same constant value of the quality factor, and by comparison of our results with previous research on these two dilatational wave modes in sandstones, both were found to be sensitive to the state of consolidation of the porous medium.

Fracture detection using P-wave and S-wave vertical seismic profiling at The Geysers

In a pilot vertical seismic profiling study, P-wave and cross‐polarized S-wave vibrators were used to investigate the potential utility of shear‐wave anisotropy measurements in characterizing a fractured rock mass. The caprock at The Geysers geothermal field was found to exhibit about an 11 percent velocity variation between SH-waves and SV-waves generated by rotating the S-wave vibrator orientation to two orthogonal polarizations for each survey level in the well. The effect is generally consistent with the equivalent anisotropy expected from the known fracture geometry.

Fracture detection using crosswell and single well surveys

We recorded high‐resolution (1 to 10 kHz), crosswell and single well seismic data in a shallow (15 to 35 m), water‐saturated, fractured limestone sequence at Conocos borehole test facility near Newkirk, Oklahoma. Our objective was to develop seismic methodologies for imaging gas‐filled fractures in naturally fractured gas reservoirs. The crosswell (1/4 m receiver spacing, 50 to 100 m well separation) surveys used a piezoelectric source and hydrophones before, during, and after an air injection that we designed to displace water from a fracture zone. Our intent was to increase the visibility of the fracture zone to seismic imaging and to confirm previous hydrologic data that indicated a preferred pathway. For the single well seismic imaging (a piezoelectric source and an eight‐element hydrophone array at 1/4 m spacing), we also recorded data before and after the air injection. The crosswell results indicate that the air did follow a preferred pathway that was predicted by hydrologic modeling. In addition,...

Elastic wave stimulation of oil reservoirs Promising EOR technology

Roughly 60% of oil resources in the world remains unproduced, partially due to limitations in existing enhanced recovery methods. This translates to approximately half a billion tons of oil left behind annually. Anecdotal production data, as well as historic field and laboratory experiments, have shown that low-amplitude seismic waves in the frequency range of roughly 1–500 Hz can enhance oil mobility and total recovery in mature reservoirs. It is estimated that, to date, various types of seismic and acoustic oilfield stimulation activities have produced an additional 11 million tons of oil in the Former Soviet Union alone. Unfortunately, field tests with different seismic sources have often yielded mixed or inconclusive results. In some cases seismic stimulation increased production rates by 50% or more, but in other cases production was unchanged or actually declined. So far, laboratory and field experiments have not been sufficiently comprehensive to define the physical conditions under which stress-wave stimulation is most effective. An exhaustive review of observations and research on this subject from the 1950s up through 1992 was published by Beresnev and Johnson (1994). The paper summarizes the important early research, including a large body of work published only in Russian. The major conclusion of the Beresnev and Johnson review was that the seismic stimulation method “has produced promising results; however, further testing and understanding of the mechanisms are necessary.” This statement has motivated numerous sponsored research projects and industry evaluation programs over the last 10 years, particularly in the United States. Efforts in Russia have also been greatly expanded. Field tests are yielding more promising results as experimental controls and measurements are improved, but questions remain about how to predict optimum stimulation parameters for a particular reservoir, and what the statistical significance is of production changes observed during stimulation treatments. Laboratory experiments continue to …

Immiscible two-phase fluid flows in deformable porous media

Abstract Macroscopic differential equations of mass and momentum balance for two immiscible fluids in a deformable porous medium are derived in an Eulerian framework using the continuum theory of mixtures. After inclusion of constitutive relationships, the resulting momentum balance equations feature terms characterizing the coupling among the fluid phases and the solid matrix caused by their relative accelerations. These terms, which imply a number of interesting phenomena, do not appear in current hydrologic models of subsurface multiphase flow. Our equations of momentum balance are shown to reduce to the Berryman–Thigpen–Chen model of bulk elastic wave propagation through unsaturated porous media after simplification (e.g., isothermal conditions, neglect of gravity, etc.) and under the assumption of constant volume fractions and material densities. When specialized to the case of a porous medium containing a single fluid and an elastic solid, our momentum balance equations reduce to the well-known Biot model of poroelasticity. We also show that mass balance alone is sufficient to derive the Biot model stress–strain relations, provided that a closure condition for porosity change suggested by de la Cruz and Spanos is invoked. Finally, a relation between elastic parameters and inertial coupling coefficients is derived that permits the partial differential equations of the Biot model to be decoupled into a telegraph equation and a wave equation whose respective dependent variables are two different linear combinations of the dilatations of the solid and the fluid.