Industrial activity away from plate boundaries can induce earthquakes and has evolved into a global issue. Much of the induced seismicity in the United States' midcontinent is attributed to a direct pressure increase from deep wastewater disposal. This mechanism is not applicable where deep basement faults are hydraulically isolated from shallow injection aquifers, leading to a debate about the mechanisms for induced seismicity. Here, we compile industrial, seismic, geodetic, and geological data within the Delaware Basin, western Texas, and calculate stress and pressure changes at seismogenic depth using a coupled poroelastic model. We show that the widespread deep seismicity is mainly driven by shallow wastewater injection through the transmission of poroelastic stresses assuming that unfractured shales are hydraulic barriers over decadal time scales. A zone of seismic quiescence to the north, where injection-induced stress changes would promote seismicity, suggests a regional tectonic control on the occurrence of induced earthquakes. Comparing the poroelastic responses from injection and extraction operations, we find that the basement stress is most sensitive to shallow reservoir hydrogeological parameters, particularly hydraulic diffusivity. These results demonstrate that intraplate seismicity can be caused by shallow human activities that poroelastically perturb stresses at hydraulically isolated seismogenic depths, with impacts on seismicity that are preconditioned by regional tectonics.

远离板块边界的工业活动会引发地震，并已演变成一个全球性问题。美国中部大陆的大部分诱发地震活动都归因于深层废水处理的直接压力增加。这种机制不适用于深层基底断层与浅层注入含水层水力隔离的情况，从而引发了关于诱发地震活动机制的争论。在这里，我们汇编了德克萨斯州西部特拉华盆地内的工业、地震、大地测量和地质数据，并使用耦合多孔弹性模型计算了地震发生深度处的应力和压力变化。我们表明，假设未压裂的页岩是十年时间尺度上的水力屏障，广泛的深层地震活动主要是由浅层废水注入通过多孔弹性应力的传输驱动的。北部的地震静止区，注入引起的应力变化会促进地震活动，表明区域构造控制了诱发地震的发生。比较注入和抽取操作的多孔弹性响应，我们发现基底应力对浅层储层水文地质参数最敏感，尤其是水力扩散系数。这些结果表明，板内地震活动可能是由浅层人类活动引起的，这些活动在水力隔离的地震发生深度对应力进行了多孔弹性扰动，