News Artikel

Q-con’s novel ‘earthquake simulator’ recently replicated an almost 20-year-long history of seismicity in a gas field in Northern Germany, providing new insights into the mechanisms of production induced seismicity and an answer to the question of whether earthquake strength will increase with ongoing production in the future.  

The new approach to the modelling of induced seismicity in producing gas fields distinguishes itself from its predecessors by directly simulating the magnitude of seismicity at a specific time, without the use of any statistical model.  The results provided by a combination of a 3D-poroelastic model and well-established physics of fault (in)stability suggest that the induced seismicity remains at the moderate magnitude level (M~2-3.5) and frequency previously observed.

As the history of induced seismicity in this ‘reference field’ is representative for many gas fields in Northern Europe, the newly published study⬈ explains why the seismic hazard associated with gas production may be generally overestimated.