Microseismic Monitoring — Adaptive Network Design

The first step in microseismic monitoring is defining campaign specific objectives, such as estimating stimulated reservoir volume, determining hydraulic fracture geometries, ensuring containment of injected fluids, managing impacts on the public such as induced seismicity etc. These objectives entail detection and event location criteria to be met by the monitoring network design. Initially in unconventional plays, microseismic monitoring was used to understand the orientation and geometry of hydraulic fractures. However, with increased wastewater disposal associated with expanded exploitation of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs and pragmatic estimates of subsurface volumes needed for geologic carbon storage the focus has shifted to mitigating felt seismicity or seal integrity monitoring. Yet, all these different goals can be met by adaptive network designs derived from and informed by geological parameters of the monitored reservoir.