Theme: | Heavy Oil - In-Situ (T07) |
Status: | Active |
Start Date: | 2024-04-01 |
End Date: | 2026-03-31 |
Principal Investigator |
Gu, Yu Jeffrey |
Project Overview
Over the past decade, earthquakes in Alberta have garnered broad scientific interest and public scrutiny. A number of energy-related industry operations have been linked to earthquakes, most notably hydraulic fracturing, enhanced oil production, and wastewater disposal on the Duverney shale play. These event clusters necessitated critical changes to the existing Provincial regulations (Alberta Energy Regulator, 2015).
The latest, and most prominent, example of induced earthquakes in western Canada occurred on November 30, 2022, ~50 km away from the town of Peace River, Alberta. These earthquakes were broadly felt by residents throughout central Alberta. Two earthquakes (with a maximum magnitude over 5.0) triggered hundreds of aftershocks that lasted for over a month. The two major earthquakes were initially deemed to be natural by Alberta Energy Regulator (2022), but a subsequent re-examination (by Ryan Schultz and coauthors) of disposed wastewater from in-situ oil recovery offered compelling evidence for their induced nature. To date, the November 30 Mw 5.2 earthquake is the largest known earthquake induced by human activities in Canada. The nature of the Peace River earthquake swarm, the stability of subsurface faults, and their connections to the nearby disposal wells are critical issues for regional energy regulations and practices.