Most current seismicity in the southern U.S. midcontinent is related to oil and gas operations (O&G Ops). In Texas, although recorded earthquakes are of low‐to‐moderate magnitude, the rate of seismicity has been increasing since 2009. Because of the newly developed Texas Seismological Network, in most parts of Texas, recent seismicity is reported on a daily basis with a magnitude of completeness of ML 1.5. Also, funded research has allowed the collection of O&G Op information that can be associated with seismicity. Although in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, recent seismicity has been associated mostly with saltwater disposal (SWD), in the South Delaware Basin, West Texas, both hydraulic fracturing (HF) and SWD have been found to be causal factors. We have begun to establish an O&G Op database using four different sources—IHS, FracFocus, B3, and the Railroad Commission of Texas—with which we can associate recent seismicity to HF and SWD. Our approach is based on time and epicentral location of seismic events and time, location of HF, and SWD. Most seismicity occurs in areas of dense HF and SWD‐well activity overlapping in time, making association of seismicity with a specific well type impossible. However, through examination of clustered seismicity in space and time, along with isolated clusters of spatiotemporal association between seismicity and O&G Ops, we are able to show that a causation between HF and seismicity may be favored over causation with SWD wells in areas of spatially isolated earthquake clusters (Toyah South, Reeves West, Jeff Davis Northeast, and Jeff Davis East). Causality between SWD and seismicity may be inferred for isolated cases in Reeves South and Grisham West.

中文翻译：

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水力压裂和废水处理导致西得克萨斯州特拉华盆地的诱发地震

美国南部中部大陆当前的大多数地震活动与油气作业（O＆G Ops）有关。在得克萨斯州，虽然记录的地震属于中低度地震，但自2009年以来地震活动率一直在上升。由于得克萨斯州大部分地区都建立了新开发的得克萨斯地震网络，因此，每天报告的近期地震活动与ML 1.5的完整性等级。同样，获得资助的研究也允许收集与地震活动有关的O＆G Op信息。尽管在达拉斯-沃思堡地区，最近的地震活动主要与咸水处置（SWD）有关，但在西德克萨斯州的南特拉华盆地，水力压裂（HF）和SWD均被认为是因果关系。我们已经开始使用四个不同的来源（IHS，FracFocus，B3和得克萨斯州铁路委员会-我们可以将最近的地震活动与HF和SWD联系起来。我们的方法基于地震事件的时间和震中位置以及时间，HF和SWD的位置。大多数地震活动发生在HF和SWD井活动密集的地区，这些活动在时间上重叠，使得地震活动与特定井类型的关联变得不可能。但是，通过检查时空上的聚类地震活动性，以及地震活动性和O＆G Ops之间的时空关联的孤立聚类，我们能够表明，在空间上隔离的区域中，SWD井的因果关系可能比HF和地震性之间的因果关系更为有利地震群（南部的Toyah，西部的里夫斯，东北的杰夫·戴维斯和东部的杰夫·戴维斯）。