Induced seismicity and climate change: is there any link
Antonio P. Rinaldi, SED – Swiss Seimological Service, ETHZ, Zurich, Switzerland
Séminaire
Rue des Maraîchers 13, Room 001
Understanding how to deal with climate change represents a key challenge for research in the upcoming years. Two main lines of research can be followed to fight climate change: 1) find and exploit new forms of clean energy and 2) reduce emission to atmosphere. This means, in terms of georesources, on the one hand to limit exploitation of fossil fuels by developing carbon free energy (e.g. geothermal) and, on the other hand, to store CO2 and/or waste (e.g. nuclear or wastewater) in the underground. Both forms of exploitation of underground resources has a potential of inducing earthquakes, therefore gaining increasing interest in the scientific geocommunity. A quick review of the distribution of the world energy supply shows that about 85% of all currently employed energy production techniques can be associated with induced seismicity.
In this presentation, I will review some recent numerical modeling studies aimed at understanding (i) the physical mechanisms causing the link between induced seismicity and the enhanced geothermal systems exploitation, (ii) the possible reactivation of a fault during CO2 storage and its link to possible leakage at shallow depth, and finally (iii) a recent work trying to understand if nuclear waste disposal could also be linked to induced fault reactivation.
These modeling results and these real field examples, representing the state of the art, point out that understanding induced seismicity, while not directly linked to it, will be pivotal for the future of climate change.
vendredi
22.11.2019
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samedi
23.11.2019
Swiss Geoscience Meeting
Fribourg
mardi
26.11.2019
17h15
Water, energy and environment: how determinism and stochasticity beget resilience and shape sustainability
Paolo Perona, School of Engineering, Institute for Infrastructure and Environment, The University of Edinburgh, UK
Séminaire
Rue des Maraîchers 13, Room 001
Environmental processes such as, for instance, those affecting the distribution of water resources across the planet, the response of living organisms to environmental stimuli, carbon sequestration and storage in the lithosphere, etc. are key to the functioning of the Earth system and its components (Ecosphere). Such processes are characterized by deterministic (i.e. certain) and stochastic (i.e. uncertain) rules, which help govern ecosystem habitat formation, characteristics and species biodiversity.
Compared to the pre-human era, the Ecosphere is now exposed to human actions that affect both biotic and abiotic processes across several spatial and temporal scales. As a result, many environmental processes are transgressing planetary boundaries previously considered safe for the Earth system to function properly.
In this talk, we will examine how deterministic trends and random fluctuations affect water, energy and environmental processes and how their combination can lead to the resistance and resilience of ecosystems to perturbations. We shall examine pattern formation, plant growth and uprooting, and the effect of memory in water-driven systems as examples of the above processes, under both human-driven and climate change scenarios.
In general, as far as environmental processes are concerned, we will learn that sustainable measures placed in defense of planetary boundaries must guarantee part of the original deterministic and noisy components of the process. The lecture will conclude with an overview of new perspectives for the transdisciplinary development of future environmental sciences and engineering.
jeudi
28.11.2019
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vendredi
29.11.2019
Célébration des 20 ans de l’ELSTE
TBD
vendredi
06.12.2019
11h15
Alpine tectonic and Deep fluid circulations
Francois Roure, IFP-Energies Nouvelles, Rueil-Malmaison, France
Séminaire
Rue des Maraîchers 13, Room 001
vendredi
17.01.2020
11h15
When and how we can use seismicity to discriminate between magmatic and non-magmatic unrests
