Tag: Brian Stump

The Texas Tribune: Surprise quakes stir up Tarrant County residents

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date January 6, 2014

After a contentious town hall meeting concerning the possible links between wastewater injection and a spate of North Texas earthquakes, locals say they cannot afford to wait for state regulators to address the issue.

Journalist Jim Malewitz with The Texas Tribune tapped the expertise of SMU geophysicist Brian Stump, whose research has looked at the operation of saltwater injection disposal wells and small earthquakes that have occurred in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Stump is Albritton Professor of Earth Sciences in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. His primary research interests include seismic wave propagation, seismic source theory and shallow geophysical site characterization. Recent work has focused on characterization of explosions as sources of seismic waves. Studies have included the quantification of single-fired nuclear and chemical explosions as well as millisecond-delay-fired explosions typical of those used in the mining industry. The spatial and temporal effects of mining explosions and their signature in regional waveforms have been of particular interest. This research has application to the monitoring of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty where even small explosions will have to be identified using their seismic signatures.

Stump received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Immediately following his graduate education he spent four years on active duty with the US Air Force as a staff seismologist and ultimately as Chief of the Geological Siting and Seismology Section. He joined the SMU faculty in 1983.

The Texas Tribunes’s coverage, “After Surprise Quakes, North Texans Speak of Impact,” was published online Jan. 3.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Jim Malewitz
The Texas Tribune
Melanie Williams does not want to abandon her home. She has been there, done that. That’s why she’s here now.

After Hurricane Katrina forced her to leave New Orleans eight years ago, the 47-year-old took refuge in this small town near Fort Worth — about 300 miles from the Gulf Coast waters that engulfed her former life.

But, once again, Williams is living on shaky ground — this time, literally. She says a recently cracked foundation and busted water pipe have made her decade-old house unlivable, leaving her struggling to pay rent for an apartment on top of her mortgage as she awaits the fixes.

Williams blames a recent string of earthquakes, whose rumblings she never expected to feel when she settled here.

“I’ve had it up to here with the disasters,” she said in an interview. “It’s like they’ve been following me.” [ … ]

[ … ] In 2008 and 2009, folks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were shaken by three series of earthquakes, with magnitudes as high as 3.3. In a study prompted by those concerns, researchers at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin concluded that local disposal wells were a “plausible” cause, though they found it “puzzling” that the tremors were concentrated in just one or two locations in a region that had more than 200 disposal wells.

Read the full story.

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Tags Brian Stump, Dedma, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter

SMU scientists to deploy seismic monitors in North Texas region near Azle, Texas

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date December 9, 2013

USGS’s NetQuakes program and IRIS providing the equipment to study geographic area experiencing recent small earthquakes

Seismologists from SMU will deploy a variety of seismic monitors in and around Azle, Texas, to study the recent burst of small earthquakes that have been occurring in the area northwest of Fort Worth.

The first group of instruments, four digital monitors provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), will be deployed as early as this week to monitor the burst of seismicity that has been occurring in the area since early November. The USGS NetQuakes instruments are designed to be installed in private homes, businesses, public buildings and schools with an existing broadband connection to the internet, and data from those monitors will be available online.

SMU’s research team, led by Heather DeShon, associate professor of geophysics, also will deploy a group of 15, single-channel sensors provided by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere (PASSCAL) and another four or five broadband instruments from other sources. The additional monitors will allow researchers to study a broader area.

“We are first going to focus in on where the earthquakes have been occurring — about a five-to-six-mile area near Reno and Azle,” DeShon said. “How long the monitors remain depends on continued seismicity. We’re thinking a few months.”

An oil rig drills a horizontal well in search of oil and natural gas. (Reuters/Terry Wade)

The locations of the monitors will remain confidential to preserve the integrity of the data they will be collecting.

About 20 earthquakes have been recorded in North Texas since Nov. 1. Most recently, an earthquake registering 3.7 was recorded near Mineral Wells early Monday, about 24 hours after an earthquake registering 3.6 was recorded north of Azle.

North Texas is an area of extensive petroleum production — particularly natural gas drawn from the Barnett Shale formation in the Fort Worth Basin.

On Dec. 23, the USGS provided a preliminary report on findings from the monitoring. The Dec. 23 report was presented to Azle Mayor Alan Brundrett in a letter, which is available online at “USGS Preliminary Report to the Mayor of Azle.”

Earlier studies indicated liking between seismicity and injection wells
Two studies produced by a group of SMU and University of Texas at Austin seismologists since 2009, the most recent published this month, have indicated a possible linkage between seismicity and some injection wells drilled for the disposal of oil and gas production fluids. The Azle monitors, however, will not be deliberately sited near injection wells.

“The first goal is to get a better handle on where these earthquakes are occurring,” DeShon said. “If it turns out they are near injection wells, then we’ll study that potential link. The primary goal is to provide better information for the public.”

NetQuakes seismometers are bolted to concrete foundations to ensure they are well-coupled to a structure and accurately record ground motion.

The USGS National Earthquake Information Center reports that in some regions, such as the south-central states of the U.S. (which includes the North Texas region) a significant majority of recent earthquakes are thought by many seismologists to have been human-induced.

“Even within areas with many human-induced earthquakes, however, the activity that seems to induce seismicity at one location may be taking place at many other locations without inducing felt earthquakes,” reads the summary posted on a page spelling out the basic information stemming from Monday’s Azle earthquake. “In addition, regions with frequent induced earthquakes may also be subject to damaging earthquakes that would have occurred independently of human activity. Making a strong scientific case for a causative link between a particular human activity and a particular sequence of earthquakes typically involves special studies devoted specifically to the question.” — Kim Cobb

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Tags Brian Stump, Dedman College, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Researcher news

Stump leads global consortium for seismic acquisition, management, open distribution

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date January 26, 2011

Brian Stump, Albritton Professor of Earth Sciences in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, has been elected chair of the board of directors for a university-based consortium that operates facilities for the acquisition, management and open distribution of seismic data.

The programs of the Incorporated Research Institutes for Seismology contribute to scholarly research, education, earthquake hazard mitigation and verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. IRIS was founded in 1984 with support from the National Science Foundation: the late Eugene T. Herrin, Jr., who held the Shuler-Foscue Endowed Chair in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, was a founding member. IRIS facilities primarily are operated through its more than 100 member universities and in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey.

IRIS supports global seismic network, shares information, ideas, equipment
Scientists from member institutions participate in IRIS management through an elected nine-member board, eight regular committees and ad hoc advisory groups. Stump’s term of office as chair of the board is for three years, and will expire at the end of 2013.

“IRIS was formed because it was realized that we needed to support the global seismic network and needed the free exchange of information and ideas,” Stump said. “Instrumentation is so expensive that the seismic community needed to find a way to make equipment available to anyone who needs it for research, regardless of the size or funding capability of their parent institution.”

More than 4000 portable monitors are available through the IRIS PASSCAL facility at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico. These instruments proved invaluable to Stump and his SMU team in researching a series of small earthquakes that occurred in North Texas between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 16, 2009. The ability to quickly place monitors at the site of the original quakes allowed scientists to record 11 earthquakes between Nov. 9, 2008, and Jan. 2, 2009, that were too small to be felt by area residents.

“The monitors available to IRIS members are well-used assets,” Stump said. “They’re constantly in service, like library books that fly off the shelves. We never have enough equipment.”

IRIS sponsors Stump as distinguished lecturer
Stump also is one of two distinguished lecturers sponsored this year by IRIS and the Seismology Society of America. One of his four scheduled talks on “Forensic Seismology and Nuclear Testing: The Detective Work of Seismologists” will be at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Geology Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

The Global Seismographic Network consists of more than 150 permanent stations around the world. It is operated by IRIS in cooperation with the USGS Geological Survey and allows seismologists to examine large events occurring anywhere to determine if they were caused by natural events such as earthquakes, or man-made events such as mine explosions or nuclear tests.

The connection between seismology and nuclear explosion monitoring began at the culmination of the Manhattan Project with the detonation of the first fission nuclear explosion in Southern New Mexico in July of 1945 and continues today with renewed discussions of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. All of the data from the IRIS global and portable stations are archived at the IRIS Data Management Center in Seattle, Washington, and are freely and openly available on-line to researchers, educators and the public.

Stump research includes characterization of explosions
Brian Stump’s primary research interests include seismic wave propagation, seismic source theory and shallow geophysical site characterization. Recent work has focused on characterization of explosions as sources of seismic waves. Studies have included the quantification of single-fired nuclear and chemical explosions as well as millisecond-delay-fired explosions typical of those used in the mining industry. The spatial and temporal effects of mining explosions and their signature in regional waveforms have been of particular interest. This research has application to the monitoring of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty where even small explosions will have to be identified using their seismic signatures.

Stump received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held a UC Regents Intern Fellowship. Immediately following his graduate education he spent four years on active duty with the US Air Force as a staff seismologist and ultimately as Chief of the Geological Siting and Seismology Section. He joined the SMU faculty in 1983.

Stump joined the technical staff of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1994 to 1997, where he was program manager of the Nuclear Test Monitoring Group and participated in the negotiations for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Geneva, Switzerland, as a scientific advisor for the Department of Energy. He was a member of the team that received the Los Alamos National Laboratory Outstanding Performer Small Group Award in 1996. — Kim Cobb

Tags Brian Stump, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Researcher news SMU In The News

AGI’s Earth magazine covers SMU seismic research in Barnett Shale region

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date May 13, 2010

Earth magazine’s Carolyn Gramling interviewed SMU geophysicist Brian Stump about the operation of a saltwater injection disposal well that was a “plausible cause” for a series of small earthquakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2008.

The May 13 article in Earth, the magazine of The American Geological Institute, explores the research into the earthquakes, which occurred in an area of North Texas where the vast Barnett Shale geological formation traps natural gas deposits in subsurface rock.

Natural gas production in the Barnett Shale relies on the injection of pressurized water into the ground to crack open the gas-bearing rock, a process known as “hydraulic fracturing.”

Some of the injected water is recovered with the produced gas in the form of waste fluids that require disposal. Research by Stump looked at incidents that occurred in an area of North Texas where the vast Barnett Shale geological formation traps natural gas deposits in subsurface rock.

See more coverage

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US News: Quakes, injection wells link?

EXCERPT:
By Carolyn Gramling
Earth Web Editor, Reporter
A saltwater disposal well, a part of the natural gas production process, may have been responsible for triggering a series of minor earthquakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas in 2008, according to a recent study.

A series of small earthquakes that shook up the Dallas-Fort Worth area may be linked to natural gas production in the nearby Barnett Shale.

From Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, 2008, several minor earthquakes rattled the walls and shook the furniture of numerous residences in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The earthquakes, with magnitudes between 2.5 and 3.0, prompted questions among the residents about whether drilling for natural gas in the nearby Barnett Shale was responsible for the shaking. A second series of earthquakes, with the largest a magnitude 3.3, occurred on May 16, 2009; a third occurred on June 2, 2009.

Natural gas production involves multiple steps, including drilling a natural gas well, pumping pressurized fluids into the well to crack open the rock (hydraulic fracturing), and then extracting the natural gas and used fluids.

Once the gas and fluids are extracted, the fluids are reinjected back into the ground via a different well, called a saltwater disposal well, located some distance away from the production wells.

Read the full story

Tags Brian Stump, Chris Hayward, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate

SMU-UT study shows “plausible” connection between DFW quakes, saltwater injection well

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 9, 2010

Production in the Barnett Shale relies on the injection of pressurized water into the ground to crack open the gas-bearing rock, a process known as “hydraulic fracturing.” Some of the injected water is recovered with the produced gas in the form of waste fluids that require disposal.

SMU scientists place monitoring equipment. Credit: Jackson

The earthquakes do not appear to be directly connected to the drilling, hydraulic fracturing or gas production in the Barnett Shale, the study concludes.

However, re-injection of waste fluids into a zone below the Barnett Shale at the nearby saltwater disposal well began in September 2008, seven weeks before the first DFW earthquakes occurred.

No earthquakes were recorded in the area after the injection well stopped operating in August 2009.

The largest of the DFW-area earthquakes was a 3.3 magnitude event reported by the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

Fluid injection stressed fault?
A state tectonic map prepared by the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology shows a northeast-trending fault intersects the Dallas-Tarrant county line approximately at the location where the DFW quakes occurred. The study concludes, “It is plausible that the fluid injection in the southwest saltwater disposal well could have affected the in-situ tectonic stress regime on the fault, reactivating it and generating the DFW earthquakes.”

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Simulating the Big Bang

An SMU team led by seismologists Brian Stump and Chris Hayward placed portable, broadband seismic monitoring equipment in the area after the earthquakes began.

The seismographs recorded 11 earthquakes between Nov. 9, 2008, and Jan. 2, 2009, that were too small to be felt by area residents. Cliff Frohlich and Eric Potter of UT-Austin joined the SMU team in studying the DFW-area sequence of “felt” earthquakes as well as the 11 “non-felt” earthquakes. Their study, “Dallas-Fort Worth earthquakes coincident with activity associated with natural gas production,” appears in the March issue of The Leading Edge, a publication of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

The SMU team also installed temporary monitors in and around Cleburne, Texas where another series of small earthquake began June 2, 2009. Results from that study are not yet available.

Study raises more questions
Stump and Hayward caution that the DFW study raises more questions than it answers.

“What we have is a correlation between seismicity, and the time and location of saltwater injection,” Stump said. “What we don’t have is complete information about the subsurface structure in the area — things like the porosity and permeability of the rock, the fluid path and how that might induce an earthquake.”

“More than 200 saltwater disposal wells are active in the area of Barnett production,” the study notes. “If the DFW earthquakes were caused by saltwater injection or other activities associated with producing gas, it is puzzling why there are only one or two areas of felt seismicity.”

Further compounding the problem, Hayward said, is that there is not a good system in place to measure the naturally occurring seismicity in Texas: “We don’t have a baseline for study.”

Call for more fluid injection research
Enhanced geothermal projects also rely on methods of rock fracturing and fluid circulation. Geological carbon sequestration, an approach being researched to combat climate change, calls for pumping large volumes of carbon dioxide into subsurface rock formations.

“It’s important we understand why and under what circumstances fluid injection sometimes causes small, felt earthquakes so that we can minimize their effects,” Frohlich said.

The study notes that fault ruptures for typical induced earthquakes generally are too small to cause much damage.

“There needs to be collaboration between universities, the state of Texas, local government, the energy industry and possibly the federal government for study of this complicated question of induced seismicity,” Stump said. “Everyone wants quick answers. What I can tell you is the direction these questions are leading us.” — Kimberly Cobb

Click here to read the article

Report Authors:

Cliff Frohlich, associate director, senior research scientist, Institute for Geophysics, UT-Austin
Eric Potter, program director, Bureau of Economic Geology, UT-Austin
Chris Hayward, director, Geophysics Research Projects, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences
Brian Stump, Claude C. Albritton Jr. Chair, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Tags Brian Stump, Chris Hayward, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

After a contentious town hall meeting concerning the possible links between wastewater injection and a spate of North Texas earthquakes, locals say they cannot afford to wait for state regulators to address the issue.

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USGS’s NetQuakes program and IRIS providing the equipment to study geographic area experiencing recent small earthquakes

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