GoMED

GoMED :  Tulane University teamed up with partners in Louisiana and Israel to lead the U.S.-Israel Energy Centers aimed at improving the safety, efficiency and sustainability of offshore natural gas production. The five-year, $27 million initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy and Israel’s Ministry of Energy, will, in partnership with industry, work to develop and deploy new and critical technologies for the fossil energy, energy storage, and energy-water nexus sectors. The goal of the Center is to help propel energy security and economic development, while facilitating cooperation among U.S. and Israeli companies, research institutes and universities.

The GATR lab is closely collaborating with Prof Einat Aharonov from Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) and her PhD student, Pritom Sarma.  Tulane PhD student Eduardo Arzabala, visiting HUJI student Pritom Sarma, and Dr D. Carolina Hurtado-Pulido, now a post-doc at Purdue University;  Martin Musila and Cirus Kalugana are also working on comparisons of models and induced seismicity in Texas and Louisiana.   Tulane undergrads Hayden Holcomb and Zach Hom contributed foundational work. 

Context and Objectives:  Earthquakes are expected near plate boundary zones, but oil and gas extraction and associated industrial activities can also induce earthquakes in stable continental interiors.  Earthquakes release stored strain energy from tectonic and overburden pressures, and occur when the applied stresses (sum of tectonic, overburden, and pore pressure) are greater than the strength of existing fault zones.  Within sedimentary basins, the removal and injection of large volumes of water alter the state-of-stress in the region, and may also affect the pressure of pore fluids within sedimentary strata.  In some areas of sustained reinjection, induced earthquakes occur in crystalline basement kilometers below the fluid injection zones.  Not only do the earthquakes signal slip along existing fault zones, but the passage of seismic waves through pressurized rock volumes may alter the physical properties of sedimentary rock layers , triggering gas escape, aseismic sliding, and even submarine landslides.  We probe the physics of rupture, energy directivity, and indirectly, changes in physical properties of the subsurface using analytic and numerical models of the coupled mechanics of fluid flow and solid deformation during injection.  Models are compared to seismic data from constrained fluid injection sites in the Gulf of Mexico region. The objectives of the Tulane induced seismicity studies are to evaluate state of stress at a larger scale, comparing models with induced earthquake 4D locations, and source mechanisms  and to develop new tools to probe poro-elastic, pore fluid pressure, and gravitational loading effects (e.g., water removal, water injection) on the spatial distribution and kinematics of fault movement in response to fluid transfer.   

Dr Carolina Hurtado-Pulido’s PhD thesis party

Publications and Presentations