Determination of horizontal stress orientation in the areas of the Tomsk region

Introduction. The World Stress Map project proves that horizontal stress orientation determination is a global task essential for the majority of geomechanical calculations. However, there is scant data on stress orientations in the territory of Russia at the moment. The task is therefore highly relevant. Research objective is to determine the orientations of maximum and minimum horizontal stresses by separate areas of the Tomsk region and build a map of horizontal stresses. Method of research. The basis for determining the orientations of horizontal stresses is the theory of drilling-induced fracture and borehole breakouts occurrence. The maximum stress orientation coincides with the drilling-induced fracture orientation, whereas the minimum stress orientation coincides with the borehole breakouts orientation or is perpendicular to the maximum stresses. Results. Research results are compiled in a summary table containing mean orientations of horizontal stresses by areas and a map of horizontal stress orientations. Conclusions. A summary map of maximum horizontal stress strike azimuths has been constructed. The stresses are of similar orientation in every well under consideration, except for a well in the North-Shingin area. The average value of maximum horizontal stress orientation has made up 337° northwest and 157° southeast.

Fractures in Granite: Results from United Downs Deep Geothermal well UD-1

<p>The geothermal potential of the granites of SW England has long been known. The first significant exploration of the resource was in the Carnmenellis Granite under the ‘Hot Dry Rock (HDR) Project’ during the 80’s and early 90’s. Following completion of the HDR project there was little further exploration in the area for geothermal power generation. Recently however, development of the United Downs Deep Geothermal Power (UDDGP) project marks a significant leap forward, and this aims to be the first commercial project to explore deep geothermal power generation in SW England.</p><p> </p><p>The UDDGP project targets the Porthtowan Fault zone, a regional scale NW to NNW striking strike-slip fault that is inferred to transect the NE margin of the Carnmenellis Granite. Two directional wells were drilled to intersect this fault zone, maximising the surface area of the fault exposed. A production well with a measured depth of 5275 m true vertical depth of 5054 m and an injection well vertically above the production well at a measured depth of 2393 m and a true vertical depth of 2214 m. A full suite of geophysical wireline logs were collected for the production well, including borehole image logs from 900 mMD to 5160 mMD (900 - 4097mTVD).</p><p> </p><p>Interpretation of the borehole imaging across the 4260 m identified a total of 12031 discontinuities. The features were classified using a simple schema and provide new insights into the complex nature of faulting and fracturing within the Granite. Stress field indicators including Borehole Breakouts and Drilling Induced Tensile Fractures (DIFs) were also interpreted.</p><p> </p><p>The orientations of the borehole breakouts and DIFs are consistent and are comparable to previous measurements in the region and the regional stress field, indicating the direction of maximum compression is, approximately horizontal trending towards 320°.</p><p> </p><p>The data show variable fracture density along the imaged section of the well with the maximum density tentatively associated with discreet fault zones. At least 3 fracture sets are identified with the largest concentration of fractures approximately parallel to inferred Porthtowan Fault Zone, suggesting UD-1 intersected the target fault zone. Key fracture attributes are explored and discussed including orientation, spacing, intensity, and spatial correlation.</p>

Rock strength and time dependent deformation of borehole breakouts in the ICDP Outokumpu deep borehole

<p>While the mechanical properties of plate boundaries are relatively well known and characterized by earthquake occurrence, intraplate regions are still largely <em>“terra incognita”</em>, especially in cratonic shields where only seldom and very few data related to the state of the stress field are available. The only way to detect such data and understand the geological and physical processes responsible for the present stress field in an intraplate area is to carry out in-situ measurements of stress-induced deformation in a borehole over time. We had a unique and extraordinary opportunity to measure and investigate the time-dependent deformation in an aseismic area directly in-situ inside the 2500 m Outokumpu open borehole in eastern Finland. The stress data acquired in 2006 and 2011 have been analysed and show that a slow but continued deformation of the upper part of the Earth‘s crust, albeit unexpected, is still ongoing. The continuous formation and development of stress-induced borehole enlargements in a tectonically very stable and almost aseismic area is unforeseen and raises questions of global importance. For this, two complementary approaches were conducted: identification of breakout zones and rock physics measurements on selected drill cores. We compared the two datasets to study the changes of breakout geometry and to quantify the growth of the breakouts in this time span from differences in width, length and depth. For the second method, UCS experiments were conducted providing unconfined compressive strength on specimens collected from above, middle and below breakout zones, and rough estimates of the static Young’s modulus based on the initial length and axial travel of the load frame. The sample height-diameter (H:D) ratio of available drill cores was less than required in testing standards (ASTM D7012, 2014, ISRM 1999). The relatively small grain size of drill cores allowed drilling of smaller-diameter subcores that in most cases fulfilled or exceeded the minimum H:D ratio (1.7<H:D<2.3). We realized that also along the same lithology some zones are affected by enlargements and other remain undamaged. Therefore, we performed the geomechanical analyses on specimens from the same lithology but not affected by failures. Fifty-one uniaxial compressive tests were conducted on specimens belonging to four main rock types at different depths: biotite gneiss, diopside tremolite skarn, micaschist and serpentinite. Results from geomechanical test show UCS values range from 27 to 245 MPa with an average of 102 MPa and a standard deviation of 42, while the elastic Youngs modulus range from 3 to 20 GPa with an average of 7.3 GPa and a standard deviation of 2.8. Most samples collected within breakout zones have UCS values from 40 to 170 MPa and H:D ratio from 1.8 to 2.0, less that required by the standards. The samples outside of the breakout zones show UCS values from 27 to 186 MPa, and H:D ratio from 1.7 to 2.3. The hypothesis for testing was that borehole breakouts were formed in weaker rocks. Our results does not confirm this hypothesis, but the observed time-dependent deformation in Outokumpu borehole is interesting and calls for further studies.</p>

Database of Italian present-day stress indicators, IPSI 1.4

The Italian Present-day Stress Indicators (IPSI) database is a freely available Italian georeferenced repository of information regarding the crustal stress field. It consists of horizontal stress orientations that have been analysed, compiled in a standardised format and quality-ranked for reliability and comparability on a global scale. The database contains a collection of information regarding contemporary stress within the shallow crust from the following main stress-indicator categories: borehole breakouts; earthquake focal mechanisms; seismic sequences and active fault-slip data. The present database (IPSI 1.4) released in January 2020 is accessible through a web interface which facilitates findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of the dataset. Moreover, it contains 928 records updated up until December 2019 with an increase of 10% with respect to the first one, and improved metadata information. The uniform spread of stress data over a given territory is relevant for earth crustal modelling or as starting point in many applied studies. It is therefore necessary to continue collecting new data and update present-day stress maps to obtain more reliable evaluations.