“Fluid-Induced Earthquakes: Insights from Hydrogeology and Poro-mechanics,” will be the topic of discussion as Dr. Shemin Ge presents East Central University’s Birdsall-Dreiss Lecture set for Thursday, March 3, at 4 p.m. in the Estep Multimedia Center inside the Bill S. Cole University Center.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will offer an overview and physical insights of fluid-induced seismicity from hydrologic and poro-mechanics perspectives.
During the 1960s, pore fluid pressure was identified as the primary culprit for inducing earthquakes reported near deep fluid-injection wells and newly-built surface reservoirs worldwide. As these human activities continue and grow, induced seismicity has surged in recent decades at some, but not all sites.
This increase in seismicity, raises the question of what fundamental hydrogeologic and poro-mechanics processes and parameters makes some sites more prone to induced seismicity.
Ge is a professor of hydrogeology in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1990 and subsequently worked at S.S. Papadopulos and Associates, before joining the University of Colorado in 1993.
At the confluence of subsurface fluid flow physics and rock mechanics, Ge’s early research examined the effects of tectonic deformation and paleo-fluid flow dynamics in sedimentary basins. She has since moved on to explore interactions between groundwater and earthquakes.
Ge, along with her students and colleagues, study earthquake-induced groundwater flow as natural experiments to reveal the hydrologic properties of geologic systems. They also explore the mechanisms of seismicity, induced by reservoir operation and wastewater injection.
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