Sub-surface operations for energy production such as gas storage, fluid reinjection or hydraulic fracking may modify the physical properties of the rocks, in particular the seismic velocity and the anelastic attenuation. The aim of the present study is to investigate, through a synthetic test, the possibility of using empirical ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) to observe the variations in the reservoir. In the synthetic test, we reproduce the expected seismic activity (in terms of rate, focal mechanisms, stress drop and the b value of the Gutenberg-Richter) and the variation of medium properties in terms of the quality factor Q induced by a fluid injection experiment. In practice, peak-ground velocity data of the simulated earthquakes during the field operations are used to update the coefficients of a reference GMPE in order to test whether the coefficients are able to capture the medium properties variation. The results of the test show that the coefficients of the GMPE vary during the simulated field operations revealing their sensitivity to the variation of the anelastic attenuation. The proposed approach is suggested as a promising tool that, if confirmed by real data analysis, could be used for monitoring and interpreting induced seismicity in addition to more conventional techniques.

中文翻译：

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使用地面运动预测方程来监测由于地震引起的品质因数变化：可行性研究

用于能量产生的地下操作，例如储气，流体回注或水力压裂，可能会改变岩石的物理特性，特别是地震速度和非弹性衰减。本研究的目的是通过综合测试来研究使用经验地面运动预测方程（GMPE）观察储层变化的可能性。在综合测试中，我们再现了预期的地震活动（就速率，震源机制，应力降和古腾堡-里希特的b值而言）以及介质性质随品质因数Q的变化由流体注入实验引起的。实际上，在野外作业期间，模拟地震的峰值地面速度数据用于更新参考GMPE的系数，以便测试这些系数是否能够捕获介质属性的变化。测试结果表明，GMPE的系数在模拟野外作业期间会发生变化，表明它们对非弹性衰减变化的敏感性。提议的方法被认为是一种很有前途的工具，如果通过实际数据分析加以证实，除了更常规的技术外，还可用于监测和解释诱发地震活动。