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Article Dans Une Revue Nature Geoscience Année : 2022

Fluid migration in low-permeability faults driven by decoupling of fault slip and opening

Christophe Nussbaum
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Louis de Barros

Résumé

Understanding the response of faults to the injection of high-pressure fluids is important for several subsurface applications, for example, geologic carbon sequestration or energy storage. Lab-based experiments suggest that fluid injection can activate fault slip and that this slip can lead to increased fluid transmission along low-permeability faults. Here we present in situ observations from a cross-borehole fluid-injection experiment in a low-permeability shale-bearing fault, which show fault displacement occurring before fluid-pressure build-up. Comparing these observations with numerical models with differing permeability evolution histories, we find that the observed variation in fluid pressure is best explained by a change in permeability only after the fault fails and slips beyond the pressurized area. Once fluid migration occurs along the fault as a result of slip-induced permeability increase, the fault experiences further opening due to a decrease in the effective normal stress. We suggest that decoupling of fault slip and opening, leading to a rapid increase in fluid pressurization following the initial fault slip, could be an efficient driver for fluid migration in low-permeability faults.
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Dates et versions

hal-03750371 , version 1 (18-08-2022)

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Frédéric Cappa, Yves Guglielmi, Christophe Nussbaum, Louis de Barros, Jens Birkholzer. Fluid migration in low-permeability faults driven by decoupling of fault slip and opening. Nature Geoscience, inPress, ⟨10.1038/s41561-022-00993-4⟩. ⟨hal-03750371⟩
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