Seismic Response of Hectometer-Scale Fracture Systems to Hydraulic Stimulation in the Bedretto Underground Laboratory, Switzerland

Abstract

We performed a series of hydraulic stimulations at 1.1 km depth in the Bedretto underground laboratory, Switzerland, as part of an overall research strategy attempting to understand induced seismicity on different scales. Using an ultra-high frequency seismic network we detect seismic events as small as M_w < −4, revealing intricate details of a complex fracture network extending over 100 m from the injection sites. Here, we outline the experimental approach and present seismic catalogs as well as a comparative analysis of event number per injection, magnitudes, b-values, seismogenic index and reactivation pressures. In our first-order seismicity analysis, we could make the following observations: The rock volume impacted by the stimulations in different intervals differs significantly with a lateral extent from a few meters to more than 150 m. In most intervals multiple fractures were reactivated. The seismicity typically propagates upwards toward shallower depth on parallel oriented planes that are consistent with the stress field and seem to a large extent associated with preexisting open fractures. This experiment confirms the diversity in seismic behavior independent from the injection protocol. The overall seismicity patterns demonstrate that multi-stage stimulations using zonal isolation allow developing an extended fracture network in a 3D rock volume, which is necessary for enhanced geothermal systems. Our stimulations covering two orders of magnitude in terms of injected volume will give insights into upscaling of induced seismicity from underground laboratory scale to field scale.